Here are five productive things you can do while dating before making the big leap:
1. Establish A Meaningful Relationship With The Parents
This may be among the most important things
you can do. Your partner’s parents should trust you as much as you
partner does, plain and simple. Try to strike up conversations that go a
little deeper than weekend party plans or that new Beyoncé single.
It shouldn’t need to get too personal. Focus
on topics like your career, life goals, aspirations and hobbies. You may
not see your partner’s parents so often, but when you do, it’s
important to make every moment count.
2. Step Out Of Your Comfort Zone
When a relationship starts to become routine, things start to go awry.
Don’t get me wrong; I love watching “Game of
Thrones” with my girlfriend every Sunday, but it’s one of the many
things we do together for enjoyment. We teach each other new hobbies. We
learn from one another.
Go skydiving on a Tuesday just for the hell
of it. Head to the gun range together and fire off a few rounds, even
though you’ve never held a gun in your life and are deathly afraid of
them.
If you don’t keep your partner on his or her
toes each and every day, yours will eventually get stepped on. After
painfully watching my parents’ marriage crumble, I will not sacrifice
lasting happiness for a life of comfort, complacency and routine.
3. Find Enjoyment In The Little Things
Our twenties won’t last forever. If you can’t
find enjoyment in your relationship without constantly getting drunk
together, using other substances or partying night in and night out, you
will soon realize that marriage might be all of the things that your
relationship is not.
Having an active social life with your
partner is healthy, but finding other avenues of enjoyment is never a
bad idea! If you both can appreciate the little things in life, your
relationship will thrive on experiences that don’t require much to make
you both genuinely happy.
4. Practice Selflessness And Ditch The Selfishness
If the sex is vanilla, it’s a relationship
killa’. No matter how much you think you love each other, if the sex
isn’t great, how do you expect it to last a lifetime? That word
“routine” comes to mind again.
When you’re with someone for years, routine
tends to creep in and that spark can easily disappear if you don’t put
serious effort into keeping the flame burning. Take a visit to your
local sex store and buy some toys or other crazy contraptions that the
kids are into these days, if that’s what it takes.
Once you start viewing sex as a chore or
obligation, you’ve got 99 problems… and poor sex is the direct cause of
all of them. From a guy’s perspective, it’s important to overcome the
need to only please yourself.
Lasting fulfillment is when you put all of your effort toward satisfying your partner, both physically and emotionally.
5. Travel As Much As Possible
This may sound cliché, but not for reasons
you may expect. I truly believe that traveling tests the boundaries of a
relationship more than anything else a couple can do together.
Going on a trip is fun and gets you to see
and experience the world. But, when you escape the comfort of life back
home and are with your partner 24/7, tempers can flare and the boat can
start rocking.
Traveling is stressful as hell. From the
planning of a trip to the plane rides, hotels, food, lack of privacy and
general discomfort of not being at home, it can be a true test of how
well each of you can handle adversity.
Interestingly enough, the fantasies and
realities of marriage and travel are one in the same. You have this
ideal picture of how perfect it’s going to be, encountering no problems
and clinging to a naive sense of optimism. Then reality hits: Your GPS
brings you to the middle of nowhere.
Bonds are tested when we least expect it, and
couples must be confident to face anything that life, marriage and love
throws at them.
