1. Choose a person as if you were blind.
Close your eyes and feel what you think about this person. Think about their kindness, loyalty, insightfulness, devotion, their ability to care for you and to care for themselves as an independent individual. While cultural influences and physical appearance certainly matter, what we perceive with our inner vision when our eyes are closed is far more important than what we see with our outward gaze.

2. There is one key difference between someone capable of a lifelong partnership and someone suited only for a short-term relationship.
That difference is the ability to learn. There is a Spanish saying: “The person who cannot learn is the most intolerant.” Someone who cannot adopt a new perspective, who cannot see familiar things in a new light, who lacks curiosity about the world and how it works, often becomes closed off and says, “No, things can only be this way or that way.” For a long-term relationship, it is best to choose someone who can remain open. Not always open, of course, but someone who can open up, close off, then open up again and continue growing and learning over time.

3. Choose someone who wants to be both strong and sensitive, just as you do.
Some of the qualities often associated with women are strength and vulnerability. Think of the strength of a tree. Strong winds may strike it, but because it is flexible, it bends with the wind. If it refused to bend, it would break. By sensitivity, we mean the ability to remain alive and responsive to what is happening around us. Some people need a little help with this. Yet deep down, most people are already awake and alive; they simply struggle to express it. This is why the second point—being willing to learn—is so important. A person may possess enormous potential to be kind, loving, faithful, and even the greatest lover humanity has ever known, but without learning and developing that potential, nothing will come of it.

4. Choose someone who shows when they are hurt if you have hurt them. And vice versa.
Choose someone who, when they hurt you, can see your pain and feel genuine regret. This is extremely important.

People express pain in different ways. Some withdraw into themselves at the slightest difficulty. Extroverts, in particular, may become frustrated when a partner shuts down, but it is important to understand that this can simply be their way of expressing pain. As long as they are willing to work through it and gradually emerge from that state within a reasonable period of time, things can be okay.

What should truly concern you is a complete lack of response when you have treated your partner unfairly or unkindly. This may indicate either an inability to feel appropriately or that the person has already emotionally withdrawn from the relationship and no longer allows themselves to be open and authentic in your presence.

Because many of us experience several relationships before finding the person with whom we want to spend our lives, many people carry wounds from past disappointments. Therefore, the ability to express one’s pain and to recognize another person’s pain becomes especially important.

Tension and even occasional hurt are unavoidable in relationships. No one can completely avoid them. But relationships should not consist of repeatedly striking the same emotional wound over and over again.

People often carry unresolved anger from previous relationships. As a result, they may have a stronger impulse to hurt a new partner. Nevertheless, they must be capable of stopping themselves when they realize their actions are causing pain.

5. Choose someone who has a rich inner life of their own.
It does not matter whether it is woodcarving, collecting plants, writing, religion, meditation, or any other passion they love. Choose people who walk their own path and see you as a companion on that journey.

Such people can connect deeply with others while remaining separate individuals, and that is an essential quality. Relationships have their own cycles and rhythms. There are times when two people need to come together as one, and times when they need space from each other. The connection between them may stretch across time and distance, but it should not completely break. Those are healthy relationships.

Relationships in which the connection constantly falls apart, or in which genuine connection never develops in the first place, are not something to aspire to.

6. Choose someone who shares your interests.
Relationships are partly about creating shared memories. Think of them as a savings account. Every experience you have together becomes a deposit that is stored in your memory and acts as the glue that binds you together.

You draw on those memories to remember happy times. Without them, it becomes much harder to survive difficult periods together.

Of course, every relationship requires mutual support, but each person is still solving their own life challenges. That is why it is important to have simple activities you enjoy together—and those activities should involve more than brushing your teeth side by side each morning.

7. Choose someone who shares your values.
This includes views on children, family size, gender roles, money, religion, and many other important issues.

Of course, this is the ideal. In reality, people rarely agree completely on every point, especially at the beginning of a relationship. Yet it is always possible to observe the direction in which the relationship is developing.

Shared values reduce the tension that naturally arises as relationships evolve. Ideally, discussions about values should take place before committing to a long-term relationship.

Although we all desire the magic of romance and passion, relationships should also be approached pragmatically. A practical perspective makes difficult moments much easier to navigate.

8. Choose someone who is capable of empathy.
Choose someone who wants to listen and is able to listen. Choose someone willing to devote as much time and attention to you as you do to them.

If you are naturally high-energy and your partner is calmer, over time their steadier rhythm may help soothe you. Conversely, a more relaxed partner may become more energized through interaction with a faster-moving companion. Together, the two of you gradually establish a shared rhythm and harmony.

According to the author’s observations, this rhythm tends to balance out after approximately nine years of living together. Everything takes time.

9. Choose someone who can laugh at themselves.
The value lies not only in your partner’s ability to laugh at themselves, but also in your own ability to laugh at yourself—or even at a joke—in the middle of a heated argument.

What matters is how you interact and how you feel around each other, even during conflict.

Being able to laugh at yourself in such moments is a true gift. However, even if your partner is not particularly humorous, pay attention to whether they can stop an argument before it spirals out of control. That requires practice because each of us carries something that, in the heat of conflict, wants to destroy the relationship. We must learn to resist that impulse.

It is a valuable skill, and it is wonderful if your partner already possesses it. If not, we return to point number two: the ability to learn.

You must also develop the ability to stop yourself during an argument, apologize, or say to yourself, “Perhaps I was wrong. I’ll apologize once I’ve calmed down.” This is your responsibility as well.

10. Learn to overlook certain flaws and imperfections.
The small traits that initially attracted us to a partner often become the very things that irritate us later.

Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés once recalled that her first husband had a habit of jingling coins in his pocket. At first she found it charming. Two years later, the same habit reminded her of a cowbell around a cow’s neck.

Know in advance what you can live with and what you cannot.

Do not fool yourself into believing that an irritating trait is somehow adorable simply because he or she possesses it. If a habit is deeply annoying or represents a serious flaw, it is unlikely ever to become charming.

Certain issues are especially destructive to relationships, whether romantic or professional: alcoholism, drug abuse, gambling addiction, criminal activity, and anything that pulls a person away from their authentic self and the life of their soul.

Likewise, someone who cannot tell the truth, acknowledge mistakes, or express genuine remorse creates a very unstable foundation for any relationship.

11. Do not merely love each other—be friends.
Friendship reveals itself in whether you are willing to do for your partner the same things you would gladly do for a close friend.

Are you willing to sit and listen? To discuss what interests them? To participate in activities they enjoy?

This does not mean fulfilling every demand or need they have. Of course not. But on a regular basis, and to some degree, yes—it matters.

When you compare what you are willing to do for your friends with what you are willing to do for the person you love, many things become clear.

12. Perhaps the most important quality of all, because it naturally follows from the others:
Make sure the person you choose makes your life larger rather than smaller—better rather than worse.

And that is really all you need to know.

Be happy!

Author: Alena Lyubimova