Dating.
An explosive world of pain and passion! The incredible highs of meeting someone who is attractive, engaging and seems to be interested – and the dreadful lows of hurtful arguments, unanswered phone calls and perhaps most insulting of all – being ghosted.
But, is there any way we can protect ourselves from the heartache and even perhaps the elation too –which can so easily distract us from other parts of our lives we could be focusing on?
As someone who has been counselling people in relationships for many years – and indeed being in a relationship myself (!) I believe that there are some strategies we can adopt that can help to keep control of our lives so that our dating life is safe and healthy. This article is focusing on the issue of Time in Dating.
Not Too Much Too Fast
You meet someone you are very attracted to – they have everything you have wanted, looks, personality, charm, even money perhaps – they could be your dream date and you haven’t dated for a while – and guess what they feels the same way about you. So what do you want to do – Spend all your spare time with them of course!
So there are a lot of really intense feelings going on and two people are spending a lot of time together – other friends and activities seem to be suspended. Everything else becomes background and this is the only thing that matters. But is it? The problem with this is that you can make decisions very quickly that you can come to regret. Everything is going very fast. Perhaps the couple decide to get married really quickly or move in together – or make some other life changing activity – even perhaps having a child. This can seem romantic and passionate at the time but in the long term can lead to huge pain and sometimes even a lifetime of consequences.
Time Is Your Friend
Basically, time is seen as the enemy to some couples who want to go straight to the big events – and yet relationships will not tolerate any kind of short cuts.
Time is needed to:
Enter each other’s worlds
• Develop good communication
• Meet each other’s friends
• Get to know what is important to the other person
• Learn how to deal with conflict management and problems
• Take spaces from the relationship to be with others and to be alone
But people avoid spending time because
• They aren’t secure away from the person and don’t really trust them
• Are very lonely and want the other person to fill the gap
• Need the relationship to feel complete
We only really “know” a person through time – relationships need to develop and this is time consuming and sometimes even very personally sacrificial. Treat time as a friend when you are dating.