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Is Modern Dating a Waste of Time?
Hellen Chen Article featured on The US Daily Review
Modern dating has become a “revolving-door” situation where men and women change partners so often that in the end, they still could not find out who they should marry.
I have spoken about not going through an endless dating game for singles but to practice “date after marriage.”
That means, don’t waste your time to date for a long period of time, but to settle down with a partner that has the same marital goals as you. And work hard to keep up the romance after marriage.
Taking Care of Another Person’s Future Spouse
Most singles who are dating spent tremendous time and money to keep up the romantic actions to court a person.
Guys like to shower the ladies with gifts and dinners. They went to pick up their girlfriends from work or accompany them to go shopping. Yet, if there is no marriage commitment in place, this dating has a high chance of breakup.
All the money and time spent on this potential marital partner is wasted because comes next Valentine’s Day or birthday or Christmas, this person will no longer be in your life.
I also termed this as “taking care of someone else’s wife.”
Ladies have committed the same mistakes.
Some ladies like to go to a guy’s place to help clean up his house or cook for them. Or they thought if they have a lot of sex, it would make the guy happy.
But without a marriage commitment, these dating actions are in the same category of taking care of someone else’s husband.
There are still only 2 ways dating relationships can go:
- A) It leads to marriage.or
- B) It ends in breakups.
Sadly, I see most dating relationships — 85% or more — end in breakups.
It does not matter how many years it takes in between, these 2 ways still have to happen eventually: marriage or breakup.
Longer Dating Time Means Knowing a Person Better?
Some singles have told me that they need time to know a person well — they like to be certain that this is the right person to marry. They would literally spend months and months and years and years to “get to know” someone.
The truth is, people change over time. You change. Your partner will change.
This change can come from various life’s instances: setbacks, successes, and many unknown factors not in your control nor prediction.
We have known marriages to break up even after 10 or 20 years.
So should someone wait 10 or 20 years to date the same person to really make sure the person is the right one?
Unfortunately, the attitude of “can’t fail” is already a failure in itself.
Let’s look back at our grandparents and their grandparents.
Was dating such a long drawn-out complex activity for them?
Was there an equivalent of an internet where one can do research on someone’s background before going on a date?
The dating time has increased tremendously since the 1960s and dating has become more complex with the huge array of services and online tools yet divorce rates are going up the roof in modern times.
In fact, here is more likely what is happening: the more a person try to “check out” a person, the more cautious and untrusting he or she gets with the relationship.
“Is this new person going to break my heart as the last one?” will be the question that one carries forwards — unfairly or not — to the new partner.
A person who gets his or her heart broken one too many times would have also developed a skill: looking at the faults of another with a magnifying glass.
After a few failures, they now know one thing with strong conviction: there are no good men or women out there who are good enough for them.
I don’t blame them. Few people can be as trusting as they like in their relationships after accumulating a few battle scars.
But when such distrust carries forward into a real marriage, then the price to pay is often too high.
How do I know WHO is the right one?
Maybe this question of “How do I know WHO is the right one?” is not as important as this question:
“Do I have the ability to keep love going with my spouse for the rest of my life?”
The dating arena is full of promises of “forever love” and the advertisement of how chemistry is the most important aspect of love.
Yet no matter how beautiful the love was while dating, it will be challenged and often blown apart in the face of the battle against life’s problems in a marriage.
The struggles in a marriage are real.
But at the same time, the love will be more real and can turn into a catalyst and strength for overcoming the ups and downs of life together.
Maybe you and your spouse got married without the long dating game. All you know is you do like each other and that both of you like to spend the rest of your life together.
Despite the challenges of marriage, you persist and the love becomes more real and deeper.
But because of the growing depth of the relationship, you never get tired of this relationship. A dating relationship has little growth and if this relationship stays stagnant for a long period of time, that is simply another sign of decay.
There is no perfection in relationships. Don’t look for it. It is a waste of time.
But there can be deep satisfaction.
And this satisfaction will come from your energy and effort that you are willing to put into love. But don’t waste all your energy and time in endless dating.
Get serious and pour your energy into turning love into a lifelong journey.
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Hellen Chen, whose marital advice has been showcased in over 200 publications, radio and TV interviews in 20 countries worldwide, has earned her title of “the Matchmaker of the Century” as she would frequently help men and women who were disappointed about relationships to then step into marriage.
To help men and women attain a deeper and more satisfying relationships, Chen has written 26 books on the subject. Her works “Matchmaker of the Century” and “Hellen Chen’s Love Seminar” have become number one bestselling relationship books at Barnes and Noble.
