relationship assessment Quotes

One of the leading causes of divorce is sexual incompatibility. Why not mandate premarital sex, overseen, of course, by the Marriage Board to ensure that it was carried out and completed as required? The final exam question could be: "Was it good for you two?" For good measure, the engaged couple should be required to work together on a home improvement project like installing a kitchen sink or finishing a basement. That's the ultimate test of a marital relationship.

Since you are "in the market," you need to set standards of what you are seeking in a partner and in a relationship. Dating is not simply a prelude to a committed relationship or marriage. Dating is an opportunity to evaluate whether the person you are dating is a good candidate for you. You need to pay attention to your partner's positive and negative characteristics. Ask yourself whether you could live with this person for the rest of your life.

You can road-test relationships.

No, really,' I said. 'I think she's great. And I honestly like her about twenty more times now than I did when we were dating. But love needs to have a future. And Sofia and I don't have a future. We've just had a good time sharing the present, that's all.

I used to think--and given the way we ended up, maybe I still do--that all relationships need the kind of violent shove that a crush brings, just to get you started and to push you over the humps. And then, when the energy from that shove has gone and you come to something approaching a halt, you have to look around and see what you've got. It could be something completely different, it could be something roughly the same, but gentler and calmer, or it could be nothing at all.

That's what dating is for, after all - to learn if you're compatible with someone.

She was forced to consider the startling fact that the love of her life might not actually be someone with whom she could spend a lifetime.

Are you better off with him or without him?

Sometimes I think marriage licenses should be like driver's licenses. They expire after a number of years, and in order to keep going you have to renew. Wouldn't that be kind of genius? It would force you both to look at the relationship, and if it's not working, the marriage would expire so you could go on your merry way, or on the positive side of it, you could look at each other and say we really want to renew. What a way to keep it fresh!!

Another reality about relationships is that they are never static. All of us experience changes in relationships but a few stop to analyse why a relationship gets better or worse.

I've liked lots of people 'til I went on a picnic jaunt with them.

We don't measure the quality of our other relationships by how well the other person turns out, for instance whether my husband is a better person after 10 years than he was when I first met him.

I have always been with men who were type A, alpha males. I must exist because I'm with him, I'd think. But what made them what they were also often meant they were lacking empathy genes. And now I know I don't need an alpha male; I need somebody who's interesting. I'm not pretending that I'm 100 percent healed, so I might not know if a man is right for me right away, but it wouldn't take me seven years to figure it out. Maybe a month or two.

Never judge someone by who he's in love with; judge him by his friends. People fall in love with the most appalling people. Take a cool, appraising glance at his pals.

when you judge the power that is in a person, you must judge their capacities as both friend and as enemy.