Three Qualities Needed for a Successful Life Partnership

Selecting a life partner is one of the most impactful decisions you can make.

Select wisely, and you can build a relationship filled with enjoyment, love, mutual support, and continuous growth. Select unwisely, and the relationship can become a source of significant hardships, difficulties, and struggles.

Imagine that you had invested millions of dollars into building a company and now needed to select a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) to lead it.

Would you simply choose anyone?

Of course not.

You would carefully examine the individual’s qualities, decision-making, character, willingness to learn, and ability to grow because you would understand that the future success of the company would be significantly influenced by this decision.

Selecting a life partner deserves at least the same level of wisdom and careful consideration.

The individual you choose to share your life with is going to influence your home, your daily experiences, your decisions, your peace of mind, and the direction of your life.

So, what should you be looking for?

There are three important qualities that can help create the foundation for a successful, fulfilling, and sustaining life partnership.

These qualities are connected through the training of the mind: recognizing that we are works in progress, taking responsibility for our own discontent feelings, and continually cultivating wisdom to become better individuals.

1. Your potential life partner understands they are a “work in progress” and that they are not perfect.

2. Your potential life partner does not blame you for their discontent feelings.

3. Your potential life partner is actively working towards inner growth and improvement, willing to do the inner work needed to train their mind and become a better individual.

These three qualities work together.

Let’s examine each one more closely.

1. They Understand They Are a Work in Progress

A potential life partner needs to understand that they are not perfect.

They are a work in progress.

And it is equally important that you understand the same thing about yourself.

All too often, people enter relationships casting their hopes and dreams onto another person. They imagine that a life partner will complete them, remove their inner struggles, make them permanently happy, and fulfill everything they believe is missing from their life.

But this creates unfulfilled expectations, leading to difficulties and struggles within the mind and the relationship.

Your life partner is not going to be perfect.

They are struggling in the world just as you are.

An unEnlightened being will experience challenges, make unwise decisions, lack wisdom in certain areas, and continue to have aspects of their mind that need training and improvement.

Your life partner cannot complete you.

If you experience an inner feeling of incompleteness, another person cannot resolve that feeling for you. The underlying cause exists within your own mind, and that is where the work needs to be done.

When both individuals understand that they are “works in progress”, the relationship can develop from a much wiser foundation.

Instead of expecting perfection, you understand that unwise decisions will occur.

Instead of expecting your partner to fulfill every hope and dream, you recognize your own responsibility for developing your life and training your mind.

Instead of becoming angry or frustrated when your partner experiences a challenge, you can practice patience and offer support and encouragement through loving-kindness.

There is another important benefit.

An individual who recognizes that they are not perfect is generally going to be more open to learning.

They can receive guidance.

They can acknowledge unwise decisions.

They can recognize areas that need improvement.

And they can continue growing.

But when someone believes they do not need to change, their ego can prevent them from examining their decisions and behavior.

Therefore, when considering a potential life partner, look for someone who can sincerely recognize:

“I am a work in progress. I still have things to learn, and there are areas of my mind and life that I need to improve.”

That recognition provides an important foundation for growth.

2. They Do Not Blame You for Their Discontent Feelings

The second quality is extremely important.

Your potential life partner needs to understand that the feelings they experience are caused by their own mind.

The outside world is not creating their inner feelings.

Their own mind is producing those feelings based on how it interprets and reacts to what it experiences.

This understanding can be developed through investigation and examination of The Teachings of The Buddha, including The Four Noble Truths.

But it is not a common understanding in the world.

Many people spend their lives blaming other people and outside circumstances for what they experience within their own mind.

“You made me angry.”

“You made me frustrated.”

“You made me feel this way.”

“You are responsible for my sadness.”

When this becomes a pattern within a relationship, significant difficulties follow.

If your life partner repeatedly believes that you are responsible for their anger, sadness, irritation, jealousy, resentment, stress, anxiety, loneliness, or other discontent feelings, they are looking in the wrong place for the cause of what they experience.

And if someone does not understand the cause of a problem, they cannot effectively eliminate that problem.

The result can become a cycle of blame.

Something occurs.

One person experiences discontent feelings.

They blame their partner.

Resentment grows.

Hostility develops.

Both individuals become increasingly discontent.

And harmony within the relationship becomes more difficult to maintain.

There is a better way.

Each individual can take responsibility for their own mind.

When you understand that your feelings are being caused within your own mind, you can train the mind to eliminate those feelings rather than blaming another person for them.

Your partner can do the same.

Now both individuals have the opportunity to work on the actual cause of their discontent feelings.

Instead of:

“You need to change so that I can be peaceful.”

The individual learns:

“I need to understand and train my own mind so that I can experience peace.”

This does not mean ignoring another person’s harmful or unwise behavior.

It means understanding where your own feelings originate and taking responsibility for training your mind rather than expecting another person to control your internal state.

When both individuals understand this, the relationship can become significantly more peaceful.

Each person takes responsibility for their own mind.

Each person can examine their own decisions.

Each person can work towards eliminating the underlying causes of their own discontent feelings.

And instead of two people continually blaming one another, you have two people continually working on themselves.

That is a much stronger foundation for a successful life partnership.

3. They Are Actively Working Towards Inner Growth

Understanding that you are a work in progress is important.

Understanding that your feelings are being caused by your own mind is also important.

But understanding alone is not enough.

The third quality is a willingness to actually do the work.

Your potential life partner needs to be actively working towards growth and improvement within their own life.

They need to be willing to train their mind, cultivate wisdom, examine their decisions, seek guidance when needed, and make meaningful improvements.

Someone might acknowledge:

“I am not perfect.”

They might even understand:

“My feelings are being caused by my own mind.”

But they can still remain complacent.

They might recognize areas that need improvement while making little or no effort to improve them.

This creates another problem.

Without continued growth, an individual becomes stagnant.

The same unwise decisions continue.

The same reactions continue.

The same relationship problems continue.

The same discontent feelings continue.

And because no meaningful effort is being applied to eliminate the cause, very little changes.

A successful life partnership needs both individuals to be committed to their own growth and development.

We are not born with perfect wisdom.

An unEnlightened mind needs training.

Therefore, part of living wisely is recognizing areas where the mind needs improvement and then being willing to do the work needed to improve them.

This is an expression of loving-kindness and compassion towards yourself and those around you.

Why?

Because as wisdom increases, harmful and unwise decisions will decrease.

You become better equipped to interact with others skillfully.

You become less likely to make decisions that cause harm.

You become more capable of creating peace and harmony within your relationships.

One of the most loving and compassionate things you can do for the people around you is to continually improve yourself.

Do Not Enter a Relationship Expecting to Change Someone

This is an especially important point.

You cannot wisely enter a relationship with someone who is unwilling to grow and then expect to force them to change.

You cannot train another person’s mind for them.

You cannot force someone to become interested in wisdom.

You cannot force them to recognize their unwise decisions.

And you cannot force them to become committed to their own inner development.

That work needs to be voluntarily undertaken by the individual.

Therefore, it would be wise to identify this quality before committing to a life partnership.

Ask yourself:

Does this person already demonstrate an interest in becoming a better individual?

Can they acknowledge when they make unwise decisions?

Are they willing to seek guidance?

Do they make an effort to understand their own mind?

Are they interested in cultivating wisdom?

When they recognize an unwise behavior, do they attempt to improve it?

Or do they remain complacent, defensive, and resistant to change?

These are important things to observe.

Do not merely listen to what someone says they value.

Observe what they consistently practice.

The Same Three Qualities Need to Exist in You

It would be incomplete to examine these qualities only in another person.

You need to develop them too.

A successful partnership is not created by finding one perfect individual who will make your life wonderful.

Both individuals need to participate.

You need to understand that you are also a work in progress.

You need to understand that your partner is not responsible for the discontent feelings within your own mind.

And you need to remain actively committed to your own growth and development.

You cannot obtain qualities from a potential life partner that you are unwilling to develop within yourself.

Each individual needs to accept responsibility for training their own mind.

When two people approach a life partnership in this way, the relationship becomes a place where both individuals can support one another while still taking responsibility for their own inner development.

Three Qualities to Look for in a Life Partner

In short, these are the three qualities you would be wise to look for in a potential life partner—and cultivate within yourself:

1. They know they are a work in progress.

They understand that they are not perfect, remain open to learning, and recognize that they still have areas of life that need growth and improvement.

2. They take responsibility for their own feelings.

They do not continually blame you or others for the discontent feelings within their own mind. Instead, they seek to understand and eliminate the true cause.

3. They are actively committed to inner growth.

They are willing to cultivate wisdom, train their mind, seek guidance, examine their decisions, and continually work towards becoming a better individual.

Without these qualities, a relationship can become filled with blame, expectations, stagnation, resentment, and repeated struggles.

With these qualities, something very different becomes possible.

Both individuals understand they are imperfect.

Both take responsibility for their own mind.

Both remain committed to learning and growth.

And both can support one another with patience, loving-kindness, and compassion along the way.

Select Wisely

Selecting a life partner is one of the most impactful decisions you will make.

Do not make the decision based solely on attraction, excitement, loneliness, or the hope that another person will complete you.

Look more deeply.

Look at the qualities of the individual’s mind.

Look at how they respond when they make unwise decisions.

Look at whether they blame others for their feelings.

Look at whether they are willing to learn.

And look at whether they are actively working towards becoming a wiser and better individual.

You are not looking for someone who is already perfect.

You are looking for someone who understands they are not perfect and is willing to continue doing the work needed to grow.

And you need to bring that same commitment into the relationship yourself.

When both individuals are committed to continuous growth and development, the life partnership can become an environment of greater harmony, enjoyment, love, and mutual support.

Select wisely.

The quality of the relationship you build will be significantly influenced by the qualities of the two individuals who enter it.