There comes a time in every person’s life (well, at least most people’s lives) when they’re ready to settle down and truly commit to a long-term, serious relationship. Often this happens after they’ve gone through a wild phase and have had a lot of experiences and fun. Dating is still fun even if you aren’t ready to be with someone forever, but when you are, you’ll subconsciously act and do these things differently.
- When you feel like you need some time alone to breathe, what you really mean is alone time with him. Everybody needs time to unwind and relax, and when you’re not ready to be in a forever relationship, you most likely want to be by yourself a lot to bask in me-time. When you’re ready to settle down, you’ll find that when you schedule alone time, you automatically include your guy in those plans more often than not. Even if you’re reading a book and he’s watching a show, you do it in the same place and it feels just as relaxing as alone time by yourself used to feel, if not more so.
- You value feeling safe and secure with your partner, and the fact that you do turns you on. Gone are the days when unpredictability and recklessness gave you an adrenaline rush. You’re no longer intrigued by the chase or lose interest when relationships become comfortable. You love the fact that you feel safe and secure with your guy, and it actually turns you on more to know that you’re with someone who you’re comfortable and in love with.
- Your life plans include him. Even if some of those plans have nothing to do with him, such as your career goals, you consider how the plan will affect him as you’re making it. You see a future with him legitimately and factoring him into your life has become something you do without thinking twice.
- You ask him for advice and suggestions about all sorts of things. You genuinely want to know his opinion and thoughts on your goals, your ideas, and everything else. In prior relationships, when you weren’t ready to be with someone forever, you most likely made plans and tackled goals on your own without asking anyone else’s opinion. Now, you automatically want to get your partner’s opinion on your decisions because you know they will be a part of his life as well.
- When you get in fights, you know that you’ll work it out. Arguments and fights are bound to happen in relationships, but if you’re in a relationship when you’re not thinking long-term, you might feel compelled to end things depending on the severity of the fight or even just to avoid the drama. You won’t want to waste time arguing and compromising in a relationship when you’re not ready for forever. When you’re ready to be with someone long-term, you never think about fleeing just because of a disagreement and you know that any fight will make the relationship stronger once you work through it.
- You’re proud of your partner’s accomplishments and feel like they’re your own. You’re genuinely proud when your boyfriend is successful in any area of his life and feel like when he succeeds, you do as well. You feel like a team, and his wins feel like yours too. You’re each other’s biggest cheerleaders and it feels amazing.
- On the flip side, his problems are yours too. While you might not be able to fix every problem in either of your lives, you’ve found that if any problems pop up in his life, you automatically tackle them and consider solutions like they’re your own. In past relationships where you might not have felt ready to settle down, you most likely didn’t adopt the problems of your partner as your own, even if you were sympathetic to them. When you’re ready to be with someone forever, your individual wins and losses combine into joint ones, so if you feel like this is happening automatically in your relationship, you’re ready for the long haul.
- You want to change things about yourself or your habits that you previously wouldn’t have for the sake of your relationship. When you weren’t ready to settle down and be with someone forever, you probably had some habits and enjoyed certain things that you were unwilling to change at the request of your previous boyfriends. These habits can be anything from personality traits to the fact that you love to go out drinking and anything else in between. Choosing to change any habits or tendencies you once considered to be core parts of your personality but that have the potential to negatively effect your partner and your relationship, especially without him asking you to do so, is definitely a way you’ll act differently when you are ready to be with someone forever.
