Preparing for a serious relationship is a little different than a casual one. For a casual relationship, it’s important to change your sheets, know your favorite local joints, and maybe update your Tinder profile. If you’re done looking for quick flings, however, you’ll need to change your tactics a little bit. Serious relationships are a lot more work, but can also be much more rewarding. If you’re ready to take the next step, look at these tips to help you get ready for a serious relationship. 

Know What You’re Looking For

Before preparing for a serious relationship, it’s important to know exactly what you’re looking for both in a partner and out of the relationship. Moreover, it’s important to know what’s involved in having a serious relationship. The honeymoon phase doesn’t last forever! That’s why you need to know traits your ideal partner should have, as finding and keeping them is work. 

Think about some must-haves. Do you want children? To live near family, or travel the world? Should they be religious? Does their job matter? Knowing the answer to these questions can make your search more refined, and also be essential for your matchmaker to know!

Prioritize Your Mental Health

A serious relationship can have a dramatic effect on your mental health. A good, healthy one can help promote positive hormones in your brain, while a not-so-happy relationship can drain you. If you’re preparing for a serious relationship, you don’t need to fix all your issues going in. The right partner for you will accept you where you are. However, you also can’t go into a relationship expecting your partner to “fix you”. Make your mental health a priority before stepping into a serious relationship. Working on issues like commitment anxiety or chronic insecurity will not only improve your self-image but also help you radiate confidence to potential partners. 

Resources like therapy aren’t only for people presently experiencing a mental health crisis.  You can take advantage of them even if you don’t think your issues are “bad enough” for therapy. With how accessible online psychiatry appointments are, there’s no need to wait for your issues to progress into a crisis. Moreover, regularly talking to a mental health professional can have many lasting benefits for your overall health.

Learn to Love Yourself

Possibly the most essential part of this list! It’s essential for you to love yourself and who you are before you expect someone else to. This is not to say you are unlovable if you have insecurities. Rather, it means that you need to know that you are valuable and deserve to be treated as such. Not only does this confidence make you more attractive, but it also helps protect you from being damaged by people who aren’t worth your time.

Loving yourself comes naturally to some people, but not everyone. Often, you’ll have to actively work on loving yourself every day. Here are just a few steps you can take that can help you along your self-love journey:

• Don’t compare your entire journey to where others are today
• Put something fun on your calendar every week
• Give yourself permission to fail at things you want to be good at
• Accept that not everyone will like you all of the time

Radial self-love can be difficult to achieve, and will likely be a lifelong process. Some days you’ll love yourself more than others, and that’s okay. However, going into a serious, committed relationship without even trying to love yourself makes you more vulnerable and less confident. 

Know How And When To Compromise

There is conflict in all relationships. While there’s the off chance you are always right, you’re human like the rest of us and sometimes need to make compromises. All relationships require you to compromise once in a while. Sometimes, it’s about simple things, like what to have for dinner, but also about more complex issues, such as your sex life or finances.

Part of knowing how to compromise is knowing when not to. In a healthy relationship, you and your partner will more often than not find a middle ground, or take turns making concessions on an issue. Sometimes, the balance will shift, but it’s important to make sure that there is a balance. If you are always the one to give up on an issue, that could be a red flag in a relationship. Know which issues are important to you; maybe try writing them down. If you know you want kids, it doesn’t make sense to pursue a serious relationship with someone you’ll constantly be fighting on that issue with.

Feeling good about the game plan? Overall, preparing for a serious relationship is all about putting the best you forward. Not changing who you are, but letting yourself thrive. If you think you’re ready, we’re here to help you find the one!