18. From Partner Selection to Relationship Building | Consonance (Gleichklang)

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From Partner Selection to Relationship Building | Consonance (Gleichklang)

What happens after the first meeting? How can you recognize that the person you met is the right one for you? How do you go about testing and building the relationship? How can a new relationship be maintained and developed? This final section will give you answers to these questions.

After the first meeting, it is important to deepen the emotional foundation of the encounter. Here too – as in all phases of partner search – open communication and honesty are of utmost importance.

If you feel attracted to the other person and they feel the same, you already have an important foundation for your relationship. If both sides are willing to commit and change, and if you share common life goals, it is time to enter the phase of relationship building, where you can test your connection and take steps toward partnership.

If this phase goes well, everything points to soon making the decision for the relationship. If concerns or problems persist after a trial period and a reflection period, it is advisable to distance yourself from the other person and continue your partner search.

The following sections explain how to best approach this and how to maintain and develop the new relationship.

The Path to a Relationship

What can you do, once the first meeting has gone well, to ensure a happy partnership develops?

Communicate Intensively and Meet Often

Neither after the first nor after the second meeting is it time to wait. If it is possible for all involved, it is advisable to meet as often as possible and spend time together.

Through shared weekends or vacations, you can get to know each other better in everyday life, experience positive things together, talk about life goals, discuss your relationship, and also resolve initial problems and conflicts.

Travel broadens the horizon. The more diverse the encounters, the more the connection can grow. Meet at different places and dare to take joint trips. If the connection remains, relationship happiness is almost certain.

However, it may not always be possible to meet frequently or for longer periods. There are life situations that do not allow this.

In that case, rely on multimedia and let each other participate in your everyday lives via text messages, photo exchanges, and joint video conversations.

Sexuality and eroticism can also be experienced as intimate and satisfying through modern multimedia channels.

Put Other Contacts on Hold

You have already come a long way, and a possible partnership is within reach. Allow the process of further getting to know each other and building the relationship the exclusivity it needs.

Do not let yourself be distracted by other or new contacts. Put new suggestions from dating agencies on hold and put down the dating app if you are using one.

If there are already other contacts, you can kindly and firmly let them know that you are currently in a phase of deepening contact and do not want to maintain several contacts at the same time. This will typically be met with understanding and sympathy. Should the relationship building fail, it will often be possible to resume a previous contact.

Be clear that multitracking is harmful during the relationship initiation phase. Instead, use your energy now to build a relationship rather than hoping for an even better contact.

If, on the other hand, you continue to make other contacts, meet them, or even initiate several relationships at the same time, you block your readiness for commitment and also fail to do justice to the other person. A mindset can quickly arise in which it is less about partnership than about short‑term meetings, thrill, and the search for something even better. However, those who search in this way usually do not find.

Even with a polyamorous search, when you are just getting to know someone, you should first put the further search on hold. Once you have come together, you can much more effectively look together for another person who fits your relationship constellation.

The desire to have several irons in the fire can quickly lead to the end of a relationship in partner search. If you make it a habit to deepen several contacts at the same time, you will find yourself in a permanent weighing process that makes a decision difficult. It may also cause the hope that someone even better will come along to cloud your view of the person and the relationship option with the person you have already found.

Finally, you should also consider that the person with whom you are currently deepening contact or testing a relationship may quite understandably be disappointed and hurt if they become aware that you are maintaining other contacts.

This can quickly create the impression of being just the fifth wheel on the wagon, or raise doubts as to whether you are serious about trying out a relationship at all.

For the success of your partner search, it is therefore strongly recommended that the moment you can imagine having found the right person, you let all other alternatives rest.

If you have already come this far together, it should also be possible to discuss this topic openly together. At the same time, it will become clear how much weight and seriousness both sides actually attach to further getting to know each other and a possible relationship building.

At the latest when you realize that the person with whom you can imagine a future continues to seek and maintain contacts elsewhere, the time has come when a clarifying conversation can be an important turning point:

It may become clear that the other person is very ambivalent or even rather critical or rejecting of a shared relationship.

In this case, you should interrupt the contact in order to distance yourself completely or to give the other person sufficient time to think.

Equally, however, it may become clear that the other person takes the relationship attempt seriously and is willing to put online dating on hold for now. Your wish to suspend online dating may even be met with positive resonance and joy, as it demonstrates your willingness to choose the relationship.

Adopt an Open‑Minded Attitude

Do not approach the further getting‑to‑know and the testing of the relationship with an explicitly scrutinizing or questioning attitude. Neither should a naively optimistic nor a critically pessimistic attitude obscure your view of the developing relationship and your experience within it.

Try to consciously experience the other person. But also practice letting yourself go from time to time. What feelings do you perceive in yourself? Are you looking forward to the next encounter? Do you sense a growing inner connection?

Pay attention to your feelings and do not block yourself with excessive caution and fear; instead, allow yourself to enter the process of getting to know each other.

Address Problems and Obstacles

Is something bothering you? Are doubts arising? Are problems and conflicts becoming visible? Do you perceive disappointment, frustration, rejection, anger, or fear in yourself?

You should not ignore these signals but take them seriously. Clarify what these signals refer to. What does the other person do that triggers these reactions in you? What could they do differently? How much is your own contribution? Could there be misunderstandings? Or would there be ways to remedy the problem or reach a compromise?

Realize that every encounter process also involves difficulties. It is a rarity that people in relationships float on cloud nine forever. So stay calm and approach everything quietly, kindly, warmly, and openly.

Name your own perceptions and feelings. But also ask the other person about their perception and assessment. It is important to exchange and understand the different perspectives in order to reach a solution.

The deeper the emotional, intellectual, and communicative foundation between you already is, the better you will succeed in removing obstacles. Sometimes changes are not even necessary; everything clears up as a misunderstanding once it is talked about.

Do not give up too quickly. However, if insurmountable obstacles do appear despite conversation and reflection, do not hesitate to end the contact and return to the previous stage of partner search.

So do not give up prematurely, but also do not put off decisions for too long. If a relationship has no prospect, delaying only leads to more emotional pain.

Practice Radical Honesty

Surely you do not want to become one of those couples who, after decades, realize that they do not know each other and probably never did. Use the opportunities for direct verbal communication so that you can avoid this development.

These are the four central features of radically honest communication for the phase of getting to know each other and testing:

• Show your feelings as you experience them: You should not hide your feelings or use their expression strategically. If you do not show your feelings, the risk grows that the other person will not perceive them, will perceive them incorrectly, or that the other person will also not show theirs. This creates a maze from which it can be difficult to escape. Numerous misunderstandings can also occur. For example, inhibitions or withholding feelings can quickly be misinterpreted as disinterest. This can even cause the often hesitant start of a partnership to fail. Conversely, a relationship may emerge in which emotional resonance is absent because feelings were hidden or feigned rather than authentically expressed.

• Say what you want in a partnership: You are participating in online dating and you both are aiming to find a partnership. You do not need to hide anything or act. Say directly what you think, and say it when you want a partnership with the other person. This will increase the other person’s attention to you and lower possible but unfounded doubts.

• Ask the other person what they want in a partnership: You want to start a relationship, but the signals from your counterpart are unclear to you. Is your counterpart too distant, cool, rational, or noncommittal? Do not leave this unresolved; ask directly. If the answer is negative, consider it lucky that you can still reorient yourself in time. If the other person is uncertain, you can still give your relationship a chance by agreeing on a trial period with meetings and a subsequent reflection period with a fixed deadline. If it turns out that the other person wants a relationship with you but a different kind of relationship – for example, living apart – you can discuss this together and see whether that would be a good path for both. Never remain in the dark out of fear, but ask the right questions that you need the right answers for.

• Establish openness: Agree and practice refraining from lies and dishonesty on both sides. Apparent or actual white lies and selective truths shape a large part of human communication. But in a partnership, this does not have to be the case. A white lie in a relationship means that fears exist (fear of punishment or negative reactions), that conflicts are to be avoided even though they should be clarified, or that the other person is to be deceived although it is actually about commonality. The societal normalization of lies allows them to enter many relationships almost unnoticed and unquestioned. But you can counteract this by agreeing on radical honesty with prospective partners from the outset and practicing it consistently.

Sometimes it can be quite painful or frightening to hear the whole truth and to know exactly what another person thinks, feels, and experiences. After all, we are all full of doubts and ambivalences, which we can usually resolve or cope with if we do not suppress them but openly name and address them.

Once you have made the experience that open communication in a fear‑free atmosphere is possible, getting to know each other will deepen into a partnership. If, however, radically honest communication shows that a relationship is indeed not possible, that too is a positive outcome, as it allows you to make a decision and reallocate your resources.

Develop Satisfying Sexuality

Radical honesty is also the best path to a satisfying sexuality.

If sexual wishes, longings, fears, inhibitions, pain during sex, tension, erectile dysfunction, or other sexual dysfunctions remain unspoken, the shared sexuality and one’s own sexual satisfaction will necessarily suffer.

Low sexual satisfaction can also lower general relationship satisfaction and one’s own life satisfaction.

People differ in their sexual experiences, sexual needs, fears, and wishes. Sexual appetites and aversions are by no means evenly distributed. Often people are open to sexual variations that will never come into play if these sexual wishes are not addressed and remain unknown.

Express your own sexual wishes and needs, but also ask and listen carefully. Overcome your shyness. In the sexuality between two consenting adults, everything is allowed and everything is possible that is mutually desired. However, the prerequisite for finding each other is knowing what the other person likes and how you yourself experience it.

A perfect match of mutual sexual wishes, needs, and experiences will be rare. Do not let that irritate you. Not everything you like will be liked by the other person. Not everything the other person likes will correspond to your preference.

On the basis of sympathy, affection, and trust, it is possible to experiment sexually and thus arrive at a sexuality that does justice to both sides. This also includes clarifying possible special wishes or problems directly, as well as discussing the relationship model. Is it about a monogamous relationship or should a consensual non‑monogamy be agreed upon?

Sexual dysfunctions should be disclosed from the outset. The more openly they are discussed, the more their intensity will often decrease if they are partially or predominantly psychological. Above all, there are so many possibilities for sexual stimulation that no satisfying sexuality needs to fail because of a sexual dysfunction.

It can also be helpful to read erotic literature together in order to stimulate your own fantasies and conversation with each other.

In the area of sexuality, as everywhere, compromises are possible, but also pay attention to your boundaries where your physical and psychological integrity is concerned.

Radical sexual honesty does not mean that sex in a relationship is a must. There are people who are asexual or do not want sexuality for other reasons. Radical sexual honesty means talking openly about that too.

Get to Know Family and Circle of Friends

As important as a partnership is, there are also other significant social connections – acquaintances, work colleagues, friends, and family.

Exchange views with each other on how intensively your relationship should be integrated into the existing social environment. A complete separation of partnership from the rest of the social environment will usually be neither desirable nor sensible.

Relationship partners also include their social connections. Jealousy and possessiveness are out of place here, and attempts to isolate partners from their social environment usually do not do the relationship any good.

Rather, relationship building and development proceed best when it is possible to turn one’s own friends into mutual friends and one’s own family into a shared family.

To deepen the building and testing of a relationship, it is therefore typically also part of the process to get to know the friends and family members of the partners. Do not hesitate to introduce your budding relationship to acquaintances, friends, and family members. This can lead to further deepening and the transition from relationship testing to commitment.

If barriers and conflicts appear here, you should again seek a conversation about this in order to find out to what extent conflicts can be resolved or whether, at least temporarily, distance should be kept from integrating the partnership into these relationships.

The attitude toward one’s own friends and family members and the wish to integrate a partnership into one’s own social environment are important foundational attitudes that should basically align.

If you cannot find common ground here, conflicts or reproaches could arise in the long term and relationship satisfaction could suffer. This may therefore well be a reason to refrain from a shared relationship. In most cases, however, it will be possible to find a good way of dealing with each other’s social environment.

Courage to Change

A new relationship will bring changes into your life. Be willing to change and do not insist on maintaining your previous everyday life exactly as it was.

You do not need to throw your entire previous life overboard, but neither should you expect everything to stay the same.

Use the time of relationship building and testing to talk about the future shared life, develop goals, make plans, and implement at least some smaller changes as soon as possible.

If shared changes are possible, it strengthens confidence in the budding relationship.

Incidentally, if you find that love, understanding, and compatibility are present, there is nothing against moving in together soon, although you can also be happy with a relationship with separate apartments in the same place or a long‑distance relationship.

Is This the Right Person?

Gain clarity by answering the following four questions:

• Is there mutual affection?

• Can you identify shared relationship and life goals?

• Are both people willing to commit?

• Are both people ready for the changes that a shared relationship would entail?

Answer these questions for yourself, but also seek an open conversation so that you can answer them together.

For a sustainable relationship, all those involved should answer all four questions with a clear yes. If that is the case, there are very good prospects for a sustainable relationship.

If, on the other hand, you find that the emotional foundation is doubtful or not mutual, that there is no clear willingness to commit, that no common life goals can be found, or that there is a reluctance to change, the prospects for a relationship together are only slight.

In that case, decide to separate – or at least to a trial period if ambivalences may still be resolvable. In this trial period, all involved can reflect on their own wishes and possibilities and, during shared encounters, find out whether a shared everyday happiness can emerge.

But do not let this go on endlessly. Rather, set a time limit for the trial period – for example, two to three months or even shorter – and then make a decision for or against a shared relationship. Limiting the trial period in time prevents you from getting into an endless loop that can be psychologically stressful and can also cause you to miss other promising contacts.

Without a time limit, a certain laziness may set in on your side or the other person’s – not having to make a decision, or wanting to keep all irons in the fire while actually already looking for alternatives.

If necessary, at the end of the trial period, a reflection period without further meetings can be agreed upon in order to reach a decision. This too should be clearly scheduled.

Why are emotional affection, willingness to commit, shared relationship and life goals, and readiness to change necessary to enter into a relationship?

• Affection is the emotional foundation and essential driving force of a partnership. Reasons such as last‑minute panic or rational considerations of advantages like financial aspects of a relationship rarely lead to genuine relationship happiness later. Feelings do not need to be huge or overwhelming, but sympathy that deepens into love is an absolute prerequisite for entering a relationship. And while it may still be sympathy during the getting‑to‑know phase, by the time of relationship building it should have become love.

• Shared goals connect people, energize them, and align their actions on a common basis. Goals motivate and give hope. Moreover, the process of achieving goals often brings joy. Furthermore, shared goals help overcome setbacks. Those who have goals do not give up immediately but strive to remove obstacles. For a sustainable partnership, shared goals are a good starting point, although they will certainly need to be worked on repeatedly during the relationship.

• Willingness to commit directs attention to an existing relationship and its preservation. This reduces the likelihood of being distracted by potential alternatives and questioning the relationship prematurely. Willingness to commit means taking each other seriously and not keeping one’s eyes open at all times for someone who might be even more suitable. Those who are willing to commit try to improve a relationship rather than breaking up quickly at the first problems or an allegedly more attractive alternative. Mutual willingness to commit can therefore stabilize a relationship over time.

• Willingness to change is necessary when people start a relationship together. But even in the course of a relationship, flexibility in mutual behavior is important for relationship satisfaction. It is about adjusting to changing situations and events together. In this way, new opportunities for maintaining and improving relationship happiness can be opened up again and again. If you rest, you rust. If only one side changes, reciprocity is lacking, which in the long run leads to dissatisfaction. Mutual willingness to change counteracts processes of negative habit formation, boredom, and dissatisfaction. Mutual willingness to change dynamizes a relationship and keeps it alive.

Say Yes to Commitment

If you feel comfortable with the development of the relationship, you should not be afraid to also make the decision for commitment. For love is not only feeling and passion, but also the rational decision to want to be with someone and stay together – in good times and in bad.

Talk to each other about your wish to be together. If both sides are able to give each other the security of being there for one another, your relationship has already begun. Now just say yes.

End Online Partner Search

By now you had already put new suggestions and existing contacts on hold and kept your hands off dating apps. You have chosen a person. Now is the time to say a final goodbye to online partner search.

This sets a clear signal for yourself and your relationship that the decision has been made. Discuss it together or click the cancellation button together – unless you are jointly looking for a polyamorous relationship.

For you, it is no longer about partner search but about focusing entirely on further building and developing the new relationship.

Make the Relationship Official

What is said publicly has a binding effect. So make your partnership official. By letting acquaintances, friends, and family know about the new relationship at the latest now, the bond is further strengthened and the partnership is also officially integrated into everyday life.

And If It Turns Out Differently?

In the best case, online partner search is now history for you, and a new partnership marks the beginning of a new chapter in life with all its challenges.

But things do not always go the way we wish. Often it takes several attempts before we reach our goals.

At every stage of partner search and also during all phases of relationship testing and building, obstacles can arise that require turning back. Even if you already thought you had found the right person, it may later turn out that this was a mistake.

Especially in the early stages of a budding relationship, disillusionment can occur again, similar to the first meeting. It may turn out that everyday life, relationship models, or life goals simply do not fit together.

Accept what you cannot change and do not be disappointed. Do not let temporary setbacks discourage you; instead, remain active and continue with online partner search.

If it wasn’t the right thing yet, go back a chapter in your partner search and continue from where you left off when you decided to deepen the current contact.

But also think again about whether you can learn something from the new experience and possibly improve your search criteria or dating behavior. Often, temporary setbacks are our best teachers.

You may even return to this point several times during your partner search, only to then start over again – not with disillusionment, but with optimism and initiative.

But if you are already at the point where the obstacles have been cleared away – congratulations!

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