MO AND PHINDI | Why you'll never find the ‘right person’ to settle down with in marriage

One of the biggest fallacies in romantic relationships is that you just need to “find the right person” to marry.

On one level, this sort of thinking tends to exempt us from being the “right” person. We make others the focus. It’s a type of narcissism that suggests there’s little to no improvement necessary from our end.

The vast majority of advice on love and dating is externally focused, either telling people how to find the ideal person or how to change the person they have into the ideal partner.

While it is critically important to know what qualities you seek in a partner, an overemphasis on searching for the “right” person often keeps people from thinking about how they themselves can become the “right” person.

One of the keys to making yourself Mr or Ms Right is to focus on the types of character traits two people need for a relationship to endure. Unfortunately, you won’t find much advice on such qualities as patience, resilience, perseverance, commitment, kindness, humility, respectfulness, forgiveness, honesty, or trust.

However, these traits are only cultivated when we are put in situations that require them. For example, you won’t know your capacity to forgive until you have been disappointed or hurt by someone you love.

Too often, we over-emphasise the importance of the superficial qualities that attract us to someone without giving much consideration to a person’s character and temperament. This leads to relationships that are built almost exclusively on chemistry and physical compatibility.

Most relationships don’t suffer from a lack of chemistry. They suffer because many couples have a weak foundation and lack such tools as conflict resolution, and effective communication needed to perform basic, ongoing relationship maintenance.

On another level, this notion of finding the “right” person communicates that we are relationship-ready and that there’s little work needed in us to make a successful relationship. This is, of course, fallacious. With this sort of thought process, you are likely to blame whatever relationship challenge you may face onto your partner.

Furthermore, the “right” person myth seeks to absolve people of duty and responsibility in building solid relationships and marriages. People think if they can just find the right person, that’s perfectly suited to the uniqueness of their personality, goals, character and lifestyle,  the rest will take care of itself.

But true love is not found. It is built, deliberately, and can be continually improved upon. And no matter how bad or good your relationship is right now, it can get better – with the same person.

When both parties are willing to patiently work on their relationship and marriage, it’s bound to be good – get better – and be the best it can be. And that won’t be because you found the “right” person.

Truth is, there is no such thing as right or wrong person. There are just people with whom you consciously determine to build a lasting bond. And that is possible with any reasonable human being you believe suits your values, life goals and matches your level of maturity.

The myth of finding the “right” person also communicates that couples that have successful marriages were lucky to have found one another – another lie about romantic love.

Luck has an insignificantly small role to play in having a “successful” marriage.

Whenever you meet couples whose marriages you qualify as successful, they'll most commonly tell you about virtues like intentionality, work, perseverance, patience and commitment for better or worse – from which their true love was born and got to mature.

Finding a compatible partner is critically important. But what’s more important is being the type of person other people would benefit from being in a relationship with.

Becoming the right person requires a great deal of honest self-reflection, the wisdom and desire to mature, and the courage to make whatever changes are necessary for growth. The great, and sometimes frustrating, thing about relationships is that they will lay bare weaknesses, insecurities, bad habits, emotional baggage, defence mechanisms, and any other area of our lives that expose our imperfections.

Regardless of where you are on your personal relationship spectrum – single, dating or married – it is never too late to do what it takes to become the right person. Your future or present spouse will thank you for it.

Lastly, no one will be everything you want. Even if you think you’ll find just the “right” person to spend the rest of your life with, there’ll be things about them that’ll draw your attention to their imperfections. We all have strange quirks and habits that make us “imperfect” partners.

Remember, every attractive quality has a flip side. If your partner is the life and soul of the party, chances are you’ll have to share their attention with everyone else in public settings. Or if you’re drawn to your partner’s amazing ability to plan ahead, you’ll likely also be bothered by their unwillingness to be spontaneous.

We need to stop telling people their relationships are failing because they haven’t met some mysterious “right” person, because often that’s not the case at all. In fact, in many instances, people just need to work on their own issues and how they approach partnerships.