How You Can Find Your Ideal Partner

Love is a 24/7 job, but you have to draw the line.

We think that routine is the less romantic thing in the world, but that’s a lie. The lees romantic thing in the world is drama. But we fool ourselves with the passion stuff.

Passion is not suffering.

Or maybe it is.

The word passion derives from the Latin passio, which means “to suffer.”

And that’s what happens to many of us when we get in love: we suffer.

But why do we suffer?

I guess it’s because we have not found our place.

I’ll tell you something. I don’t know what my place is. I’m still looking for it. But I do know where it is not.

That’s why in today’s article, we will try to find out where it is not, to make it easier to find that relationship (your place) that gives us back our faith in love.

Let’s start.

I. If they don’t trust you, your place is not there

“The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them. ”

— Ernest Hemingway.

I knew a guy, working for an insurance company, who fell blindly in love with a teacher. But because he lacked self-esteem, he immediately became suspicious of her.

During the day, instead of focusing on work, he would look for any excuse to tell me about his relationship issues.

He said he didn’t trust her because many of his students’ parents were divorced. And she was not married.

He smothered her so much that the woman ended up leaving the relationship.

But it didn’t end there. The guy downloaded a tracking app that allowed him to monitor her movements and her WhatsApp conversations.

The guy tortured himself by reading the conversations she had with her new partner. He followed her in the car, etc.

Worst of all, the woman felt responsible for his unhappiness. And with time and insistence, she ended up going back to him.

I ended up locating the teacher and warning her about my co-worker’s behavior.

The woman didn’t think anything of it. According to her, he was very jealous because he loved her very much.

Now they are married, and he has a mistress. I haven’t seen them for a long time, but I don’t think she is happy.

He keeps watching her. Because as we say in Spain,

“The thief believes that everyone is like him.”

II. If they question you as if they were the police, your place is not there

“You don’t have to defend or explain your decisions to anyone. It’s your life. Live it without apologies.”

— Mandy Hale.

My first long-term relationship lasted 7 years. Seven years in which I consented to too many things.

One of these things was explanations.

I understand that in any couple, you have to meet expectations and have good communication. The problem is when certain lines are crossed.

Me giving you explanations is one thing. For you to demand them from me is quite another.

The problem with demands is not trivial. Because it turns the relationship into a power struggle.

When you have to constantly ask for explanations from your partner, you don’t trust them.

And that is not going to change no matter how many explanations you take.

It took me years to realize that.

A month after leaving the relationship, I was in a bar with a friend, and when I looked at the clock to see the time, I got scared. I thought I was late getting home, and I would have to argue with my partner.

My body had not yet found out that the relationship had ended a month ago.

That conditioning stayed with me for a long time. Explaining yourself as if you were a prisoner for too long leaves your head and nerves shattered.

And let me tell you something. If you consent too much to someone the next relationship you have, you will have less patience. Because the previous one exhausted it. And that is unfair to both you and your new partner.

So when they ask you for more explanations than necessary, do yourself a favor and run away because that’s not your place.

That discomfort you feel is warning you.

III. If they don’t give you space, it’s not your place

“I restore myself when I am alone.”

— Marilyn Monroe.

There is nothing worse than a person without goals. I don’t mean that in a Tony Robbins kind of way. I say it as a person who has lived with people without personal ambitions.

At first, it may seem like a “wonderful” thing. Well, not everything in life is competition. And you relax, and you live in the here and now. But that here and now becomes infinite. And that’s when everything becomes dark.

Two things can happen here: your partner may want to continue as before, or he may want to be the Robin of your Batman.

If the first one happens, you will get tired. Imagine spending your life in that initial state of infatuation. It may seem beautiful, but it is not. I love the movie Titanic, but if I was forced to watch it every day when I got home, I would end up going crazy.

If the second happens, it’s even worse. Because the most beautiful thing about a dream is independence. We all have a path to follow in life. You don’t need your goal to be the same as your partner’s dream.

Supporting your partner in their projects is not the same as becoming a majority shareholder in them.

I will give you a classic example. Imagine that you like Yoga, and you decide to become a Yoga teacher. And your partner says, “Perfect, I’ll sign up too, so we can study and train together.”

That would end up overwhelming you.

I once joined the gym with a friend to disconnect after work. And do you know what happened?

My partner joined.

Because, according to her, she didn’t have the willpower to go train alone.

I may seem like a monster to you, but I wanted to go to the gym with my friend to forget about work, the house, everything.

I wanted to have a little time for myself.

The problem with this kind of couple, without dreams, is they don’t settle.

One day it’s the sports Club, another day they sign up to paint with you, and so on, until one day you explode.

Don’t wait until you explode. Claim your space.

IV. If they abuse you, your place is not there

“There’s a phrase, the elephant in the living room, which purports to describe what it’s like to live with a drug addict, an alcoholic, an abuser. People outside such relationships will sometimes ask, “How could you let such a business go on for so many years? Didn’t you see the elephant in the living room?” And it’s so hard for anyone living in a more normal situation to understand the answer that comes closest to the truth: “I’m sorry, but it was there when I moved in. I didn’t know it was an elephant; I thought it was part of the furniture.”

— Stephen King.

The other day I read a story that broke my heart. A woman was talking about why minimum living income made sense.

She began by telling how in her relationship, everything went well until they got married and had children.

Then her husband became hostile.

If he came home from work and the house did not meet his expectations of cleanliness and order, he would scold his wife.

He worked to bring home money, and she cleaned, that was the deal.

If he came home and the children wanted to play, he scolded his wife.

He worked to bring home money and she took care of the children, that was the deal.

If he came home and there was a malfunction in the house, such as a water leak or a broken appliance, he would scold his wife.

He worked to bring money home, and she took care of everything, that was the deal.

If he came home and wanted to have sex and his partner didn’t, he would also scold her.

He worked to bring home money, and she had to take care of the cleaning, the children, the repairs, and keeping her partner sexually happy, that was the deal.

Since she didn’t control the money, she couldn’t escape.

She worked very hard, her husband abused the situation, and no one helped her. That’s why she advocated for a minimum living income for people in similar situations.

The moral of this story is not political. What I mean is, if someone abuses you and doesn’t treat you fairly and with respect, you have to get away from that person as fast as you can, or you will end up on the front page of the newspaper.

V. If they lie to you, your place is not there

“F*CK you for cheating on me. F*CK you for reducing it to the word cheating. As if this were a card game, and you sneaked a look at my hand. Who came up with the term cheating, anyway? A cheater, I imagine. Someone who thought liar was too harsh. Someone who thought devastator was too emotional. The same person who thought, oops, he’d gotten caught with his hand in the cookie jar. F*CK you. This isn’t about slipping yourself an extra twenty dollars of Monopoly money. These are our lives. You went and broke our lives. You are so much worse than a cheater. You killed something. And you killed it when its back was turned.

— David Levithan.

I will tell you how I came up with this article.

I live in Alcala de Henares, the birthplace of Miguel de Cervantes, and the area near his house is full of bars. Walking through there, I overheard a brief conversation between a couple who seemed to be having their first date.

He said,

You’re not jealous, right?

She replied,

Me, Jealous? Not at all.

But she said it by twisting her face. She furrowed her brow and made a “not again” face.

• Not again a liar, please.
• Not again a cheater, please.
• Not again a child, please.

That kind of face, you know what I mean.

There comes a time in life when you don’t need to have a polygraph in your eyes. You have played the game of betrayal too many times.

That guy was asking her questions that were out of place on the first date.

Lies smell bad. And liars suck.

And that guy sucked.

So I hope she didn’t grant him a second date.

And it is that we must learn to choose ourselves. And to reject liars. Because lies insult our intelligence.

We are already too old for the drama. And what we want is a quiet life.

And in the end, the routine can be the most romantic thing in the world.

Because there is nothing better than living in peace next to someone who,

• Trusts you.
• Doesn’t constantly ask you for explanations.
• Leaves you your personal space.
• Respects you.
• And never lies to you.

Your place is there.

Believe me.

If you have read to the end of the article, I want to thank you for your support. I hope this article has helped you. If so, let me know in the comments. I really appreciate it.

Thanks for reading. Alberto García (Malafama1981).

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