George Blair-West: Is your partner "the one?" Wrong question

if you think your partner should do what you want when you want, I want to change how you look at your partner. That’s not a relationship, that’s ownership. Ownership is born of control. We definitely don’t want that dynamic with our partner. A good partnership is transactional.

Typically, when asked why we are marrying someone, we feel pressured to respond by listing the ways they are lovely to be with. But a bigger, fairer explanation of why we’re with them, and why they might be a good spouse for us, involves exploring three questions: What might I learn from them? In what ways has my past constrained my choice of partn

You’ll have common interests that sometimes require that you consult with each other to make decisions, but it’s a mistake to think that you have to agree on everything. To expect that is to make the marriage a compromise — and that leads to situations where one is expected to sacrifice for the other.