Personally, I think the best time to get married is when you’ve met another human being of good character and seen them in action in multiple situations where respect, caring, commitment, humility, fairness, patience, or playfulness are called for, and you really like what you have seen. That usually takes a year or more. Occasionally, in very trying times, it can happen more quickly. Love...
Want Commitment? Let Yourself Be Judged
Because I went to a university with a 15:1 male-to-female ratio and found myself a widow at age 34, I have a little experience with dating. One big mistake people make while dating, assuming their goal is to find and marry a great guy or gal, is trying to duck being judged. They do what they believe others want or expect, hoping to be selected as good enough to commit to. They fear rejection. All...
How to Choose Your Life Partner
For Amna Ahmad, who asked tonight on Twitter whether Assume Love has anything for the “non-married and looking,” here are a few tips. Don’t try to sell anyone on commitment. Date people who are ready for it. If your date invents you (praising you for traits you may even possess but have not yet revealed), tells you in the first or second encounter he or she might move far away...
On Again, Off Again is Not the Best Route to the Altar
In today’s Dear Abby column, a reader writes: Every time I start to get over Guy, he comes around again. It’s like he has radar. In this case, Guy is a married man, but that’s the result, not the cause. If you are looking to get married and running into people like Guy, or if you are in Guy’s situation of being unable to choose, you need to know this. Some folks have a...
David and Michelle Paige Paterson: What We Can Learn from their Admissions
NY Governor David Paterson and his wife made some tough public admissions of infidelity as he starts his service as governor of the state where Eliot Spitzer just stepped down. “I betrayed a commitment to my wife several years ago…both of us committed acts of infidelity.” It’s an awful thing to confess to, and many cannot understand how a decent man or woman could be unfaithful or how...