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Dating Advice: Questions to Ask as a Relationship Deepens

Should I stay in this dating relationship?

There are lots of things to consider before deciding whether or not you want to deepen a relationship.

While at this point in any relationship, you SHOULD NOT be ready to plan for marriage, even if you believe that you have found your soul mate; however, you do want to find out more about this person and whether or not he or she is capable of a healthy relationship.

You will want to assess for maturity and the ability to form an intimate partnership. You will want someone who can work through disagreements with you and someone who can be trusted.

Here are some to the questions to ask yourself.
* How does he or she handle anger?
* Can we have a disagreement about something?
* Can he/she stay in the discussion or come back later to talk it through?
* What is my gut telling me about this person and this relationship?
* Are there yellow or red flags here and, if so, are they familiar ones to me?

Write a list of the top 10 things that are important to you in a healthy dating relationship and keep that list close at hand. Ask yourself, does this relationship meet that criteria?

Here are some of the questions to ask your partner.
Questions about stability and maturity.
* About employment: How do you like your job?
* What are the positives and negatives?
* How long have you worked at this job?
* What made you decide to change?
* What is your ideal job?
* What would it take for you to get it?

Questions for emotional stability.
* How do you pick yourself up when you are down?
* How do you calm yourself down when you need to?

Questions about the ability to have an intimate relationship.
* About prior relationships: Tell me about other important romantic relationships in your life.
* How did they end?
* How did you heal from the ending?
* What did you learn about yourself from them?
* What did you learn about making choices in a relationship?

About friends and family: Tell me about your family.
If they are cut off from their family or only see them on a very limited plan, learn about
that and what makes their family toxic.

Counseling Relationships Online
Couples Counseling of Louisville

Dating Advice: Getting to Know More About You Questions

Important dating advice to remember is that it can help a lot to find out more about your new friend before deepening any connection and devoting more emotional energy and time to a new relationship.

Here are some suggestions for questions to ask a potential new partner in a dating relationship:

Getting to know about someone’s family can be a good indicator of his or her ability to be a healthy part of a relationship. This does NOT mean, of course, that someone who grew up in a difficult or abusive family cannot or has not

learned how to relate effectively. It may, however, help you evaluate whether or not to take the relationship past the introductory phase. (And for those of you with “rescuer” tattooed on your forehead, please examine this aspect carefully.)

When you are just getting to know someone, you must be respectful of their desire to talk, or not to talk, about private or personal matters. Choosing to wait before opening up can be a good sign about respecting boundaries so keep the questions light and playful and be sure to share some of the same information about yourself.

. Tell me about your family.
. Who are you closest to in your family?
. What are some of your favorite memories as a child?
. How did you celebrate holidays?
. What did you do for vacations?
. What would your parents say was the most daring thing that you did as a child?
. What did your family see as your strengths or things that you did really well?
. Was there any special role that you held in your family? Were you the peacemaker, the responsible one, the high achiever, the one who made everyone laugh?

As you listen to your friend's responses, do some "gut checks". Find some quiet time and a little distance to ask yourself these questions.

Questions to ask yourself in dating relationships.

. What is my “gut reaction” or what is my intuition telling me about this person?
. Are there any caution or red flags floating? If so, are they familiar ones for me in past relationships?
. How well does this person answer my list of the top 10 characteristics in a healthy relationship?

Have any other thoughts or ideas about this? We would love to see them in the comments section.

Counseling Relationships Online.com
Couples Counseling of Louisville.com

Dating Advice ... Questions for Couples: Getting to Know You

Dating Advice: “Getting to know you” questions for relationships

Dating is about having fun and getting to know different people. Many also have an “end goal” in mind, to find someone special with whom to develop an intimate, loving and eventually permanent relationship.

In dating, some think that they need to do a “sales job” to convince the other person that they are interesting, attractive and a good catch. Here is some very important dating advice. Dating should not about finding someone who likes you nearly as much as it should be about finding someone who is a good fit for YOU. This involves sharing about yourself but it also means finding out about the other person.

When you are just getting to know someone, it’s flattering to ask them a lot about themselves. Most people love to talk about themselves so don’t pound them with questions but feel free to ask away as you get to know them.

Your main goal at the beginning stage of any relationship is to find out if you have enough in common to explore a friendship with the possibility of deepening the relationship.

Another piece of important dating advice is that you also want to have some idea of whether or not this person is someone that you can trust and with whom you want to spend your valuable time.

Certainly, questions are not the only way to get to know someone. Experiences and activities together can also give you lots of clues. In this article we just want to give you some ideas of things to talk about to start the ball rolling.

Dating Advice Questions
Here are some good “getting to know you” questions.

1. What is your favorite thing to do in your spare time?
2. When you have a wide open day in front of you, what do you like to do … schedule lots of different and interesting things or just leave it open and let it evolve?
3. Tell me about the music that you like and what makes you connect to that style and those
artists.
4. What would your friends say is your best quality?
5. Tell me about your job. What do you like most and least about it?
6. What makes you laugh?
7. Tell me about your favorite movie (or book) of all time and what makes you choose that one?

Check back here for more dating advice and questions for couples.

Counseling Relationships Online
Couples Counseling of Louisville

Tip of the Week

One advantage of marriage is that, when you fall out of love with him or he falls out of love with you, it keeps you together until you fall in again.
Judith Viorst

5 Tips for Spring Cleaning and Renewing Your Relationship

There is never a bad time for renewing your marriage; however, spring is a particularly good time to renew and revive your relationship.

Here are 5 tips for renewing your relationship:

1. Talk together to see if there are any unresolved conflicts or disagreements that need to be resolved?

Most couples do have common areas of disagreement. Unresolved conflict can lead to distance in a marriage. Talk together about whether or not the issues that have not been resolved need to be worked through. Can you do it together or would it be helpful to engage a consultant, coach or marriage counselor?

2. Are either of you harboring any resentments that have not been dealt with?

If you don’t talk about and resolve differences, it can lead to a build up of resentment that comes from feeling hurt, disappointed, diminished, angry, etc.. All of these negative feelings can block intimacy and connection in your relationship.

Many people believe that they are protecting their spouse by avoiding conflict; however, the repercussions to the relationship can be very destructive.

3. Forgive what can be forgiven. Accept what has happened in the past, even if might be unforgivable.

Many couples do want to save their marriage in spite of hurts and betrayals. It is important to find ways to work through these experiences together; however, even if they are not worked through, it never helps to hold on to negative thoughts and feelings.

Can you forgive what has happened? If forgiveness is not possible, are you able to accept that it happened in the past and yet, your partner and your relationship, have changed and you are in a much different space than before?

Tom had an affair early in their marriage, 12 years ago. Sandy learned about the affair and Tom stopped it shortly after. It was such a painful event for Sandy that she was certain that she could never forgive and definitely never forget about the betrayal. What did happen; however, is that Tom changed in many ways in the marriage. He was much more loving and respectful and they found new ways to connect. Eventually she found that she was able to accept that the affair had happened but Tom was different now, the trust was back in their marriage and they truly enjoyed being with each other.

4. Learn to live in the present.

Living in the past or worrying about tomorrow robs people of their ability to enjoy life now. Find ways to let go of the past, calm anxious worries and enjoy your present.

5. Focus on the goodness in your partner and in your relationship.

It is a much better place to be in when you can be grateful for the goodness in your relationship and in your partner than to think about what is wrong. This might be a time for the two of you to start a gratitude ritual or even a gratitude journal in which you share 3 things that day that you appreciate, like and love about your spouse and your relationship.

Counseling Relationships Online.com

Couples Counseling of Louisville

A hero is someone who can keep his mouth shut when he is right.

~ Yiddish Proverb