Seven Keys to Meeting and Marrying Mr. Right
By: Marcia Augustine
You can speed up marriage to Mr. Right by slowing down your urge to rush into a relationship. Choose now to consciously slow the pace of the early dating and courtship stage so you can evaluate your man’s long-term suitability to you. Slowing the pace also helps you overcome any residual fears you may have of intimacy. Slowing the pace will help keep you from losing your self at the start of a romance. Then you’ll be free to see the new man in your life as a person, not as a prize or as your only source of emotional validation or the answer to all your problems.
Meet your need for approval. You don’t need to look to anyone else for approval if you always have your own self-approval. As children we want the approval of our parents, but parents often withhold approval as a means of controlling children. In womanhood, this can translate into dating men who don’t approve of you, so you can recreate, via the man in your life, your childhood story to win the approval of a parent. See the need for parental approval for what it is and abandon it. If you approve of yourself just as you are, you won’t be drawn to men who tap into your need for approval and use it to control you.
Meet your need to be loved. If you truly love yourself, you won’t be a slave to your emotions; instead, you’ll easily reject men who treat you in less than loving, caring ways. You’ll set a boundary that screens Mr. Right in and Mr. Wrong out. Start loving yourself by getting in touch with the child within you, and loving her the way you would a real child. If you truly love a child, you won’t want to see that child hurt, abused, mistreated or deceived. Similarly, when you love yourself, you won’t stand for hurtful, abusive treatment.
Meet your need to value yourself. Don’t be so eager for love that you give yourself away. When you value what you have to offer in a relationship, you won’t be afraid to quickly screen out Mr. Wrongs. When you value who you are, you hold fast to your standards, no matter how tempting he appears to be or how badly you feel drawn to him. You’ll value yourself enough to not settle for less than what you want or need.
Meet your need for emotional support. Find people who mirror a positive self-image back to you. If you don’t have a supportive family or friends, find new sources of support. For instance, keep looking until you find a house of worship that practices unconditional love and acceptance. Build a circle of friends around a common interest who edify you (and eliminate those who don’t), or join a support group to help meet a particular need. Notice those occasions when you enter a room, for example, an exercise class, and find that the women there are happy to have you join them. Emotional support provides a healing form of validation that can keep you from pouncing on a Mr. Wrong.
Meet your need to feel secure. You’ll be free from the bondage of clinging to Mr. Wrong because you’ll feel whole enough to stand on your own. Feeling secure requires believing in yourself – that you’re a worthwhile, valuable woman with much to offer Mr. Right. Feeling secure means that you trust yourself enough to protect yourself from getting hurt. Feeling secure empowers you to control the pace of the courtship because you trust yourself enough to do so.
Meet your need to matter. Don’t give up your interests – or your self. For instance, if you’ve ever dropped your friends the minute you started dating a new guy, you’ve given up those important friendships for someone too new to have proven himself more important to you than your friends. You’ve placed the life you have second to your budding romance, which shows that you don’t matter to yourself. You may think your lifestyle or social life isn’t much, but it is yours. Don’t trade it all in for his, because if a relationship with him doesn’t pan out, you’ll be devastated.
Meet your need to have a life. Mr. Right isn’t attracted to a woman who wants to use his full life to fill her empty one. Building on what you’ve got. Join clubs, take lessons, volunteer, try new hobbies. The more you focus on getting your own life, the less you’ll want to violate his boundaries by over-involvement in his life. Whenever you feel the urge to “fix” or “help” your new suitor so he can fulfill his potential or straighten out the problems in his life (whether he wants your help or not), turn that energy inward and use it to fill your own needs and reach your own goals. Steer clear of violating his boundary to be himself.
Before you give your heart and emotions to a man, be sure he’s worthy of you. Make sure your needs are met before you allow your feelings to grow. We all want to feel as if we matter to someone, as if we’re important to someone we love. If you want to attract a husband who considers you the most important person in his life, the person who matters most to him, then act as if you matter to yourself. Don’t fall for a new man without even knowing if you matter to him or not. Being No. 1 empowers you to wait to see if he treats you as if he cares about you – and if he’s meeting your needs – before you allow your feelings to grow. You’ll be in control of the pace of the courtship, as you should be, because what happens to you does matter.
Dating Expert and Speaker Marcia Augustine is the author of Emotional Wavelengths: How to Tune In Marriage to Mr. Right. Set for a Fall 2006 release, you can order your copy now from her website at a special prepublication discounted price.