Five Surprising Signs You Are Ready For a Committed Relationship

You heard it all the time; being in a committed relationship isn’t easy. It takes constant work from both parties to make it work for the long run. Once you are in, you can’t just run away every time an argument arises.

You’ve been seeing someone for quite a while now, and you wonder if both of you should take it to the next level and make it exclusive. But how do you know if you are ready or not?

I wish I knew these basic signs whether I was ready to be in a serious relationship or not earlier, so I didn’t have to waste so much time investing in wrong relationships.

You See a Relationship as a Teamwork

It’s so easy to understand the concept. Still, when it comes to applying it in real life, it’s hard simply because the idea of working together and growing together with someone else isn’t really familiar, especially when you’ve been single for so long.

As a highly competitive person, it gets confusing for me to see the person I’m dating as my team. I used to compare my achievements with his achievements, be it at work or life in general, and at some point, it became unhealthy because it created resentment between us.

People in a committed relationship know how important it is to have each other back when life gets tough. They don’t compete but instead try their best to work as a team to have a better future together.

You Don’t Ask for Validation from Others

I can’t stress how important it is to feel you are enough with or without a special person in your life. You don’t think your life is incomplete if you are single, and you don’t need that person to validate your worth.

Many people, especially girls, fell into this idea that they should find a partner to make them feel good — or less they are such a failure in life and unworthy of love.

There’s a huge difference between getting into a serious relationship because you want it or just because you think it’s what you are supposed to do in life. You might not realize it, but that’s what most people do.

So if you feel like you aren’t feeling secure enough with who you are, it’s better to work on it early, so you don’t have to expect your next partner to fill the void.

You Take Full Responsibility for Your Emotions

Whenever I felt sad or gloomy, I used to depend on my partner to take care of those emotions. So he’d try to reassure me and do everything to make me feel good again. Of course, this bad behavior of mine eventually led us to our breakup.

That breakup taught me how I should be the only one who takes that responsibility. I needed to learn to sit down with myself and figure out what’s happening when the uncomfortable feelings come up.

It’s hard to do at the beginning because if we are being honest here, it’s so much easier to lash it all out to our partner or even expect them to be in charge of it. It’s impossible to do no matter how great your partner is. It’s not their scope of work in the first place.

So after a couple of years, I became better at identifying and taking positive actions on my negative feelings. Now when something terrible happens, I don’t right away go to my partner; instead, I’d set up a meeting first with myself and ask deeper questions about what we can do to make the situation better.

You Are Comfortable with Spending Time Alone

I have a friend who can’t seem to stay single for too long. The main reason? Because she isn’t comfortable with being alone. So as a result, all of her relationships never lasted longer than a year.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be with someone, but if you aren’t even feeling comfortable taking yourself on a date, then you should wait it out to be in a committed relationship.

This is because you can’t expect your relationship to keep you accompanied all the time. It’s about sharing the lives together, and it’s not your partner’s job to make that loneliness gone forever.

Working on this matter before you start committing yourself to someone else will also help you lower the expectation in the relationship. Go for solo travel somewhere for a month or two, look for something bigger in life that makes you truly happy and do it alone.

You Know How to Put Yourself in Other’s People Shoes

As mentioned earlier, the relationship is teamwork, so you need to support each other’s dreams instead of competing. So, in this case, it’s also essential to learn how to put yourself in your partner’s shoes.

While you can decide whatever you want during your single/uncommitted life, it’ll be completely different when you are in a serious relationship. You can’t be selfish. You need to be considerate towards your partner’s feelings.

I realized how this way of thinking changed our relationship for the better. Most time, we are just too focus on our emotional needs that it’s hard to put ourselves in someone’s else shoes.

I used to be very angry and hurt when my partner asked for a weekend off from talking over the phone. I took it personally, which only led to more unnecessary arguments by the time he came back.

If only I tried my best to look at the situation in his way, then those unnecessary dramas could have been avoided.

It’s no joke that many couples broke up because there isn’t much understanding between them, so if you are ready to commit to a serious relationship, you should know how to be less selfish and put yourself in other’s people situation when a big problem arises.

Final Thought

I wish more people knew that to be in a relationship isn’t as easy as falling in love in the first place. There’s a lot of internal preparation to do earlier to make it strong and long-lasting.

If you think you still need to work on your insecurities, but there’s this one person who is waiting on you impatiently and wanting to be in a committed relationship with you, then you shouldn’t rush it.

Trust your gut and listen to your heart. It never lies to you.

As Paulo Coelho ever said,

“When we love, we always strive to become better than we are. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.”

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Previously Published on medium

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