Dating & Relationship Advice

So, you’d like to meet someone with faith, someone you could come to love and maybe, just maybe, share your life with? Congratulations and welcome to a life-changing journey! Like any journey, physical or emotional, it’s vital to look after yourself along the way. The key to this? Be gentle with yourself. It’s a great way of balancing your emotions and inner resilience. If you’re wondering what gentleness with yourself looks like in practice when you’re dating, here are some simple but effective ideas.

Whether you are dating, in a relationship or married for a long time, one of the main keys to a successful relationship is finding ways to show appreciation. If your ‘appreciation box’ is filled up, you’re more likely to give out love more easily. If your box is empty, then it’s very hard to maintain a healthy relationship. If you appreciate your partner, then they will feel loved and filled up, ready to show you appreciation. If you feel appreciated by your partner, then you are going to find it much easier to show love and appreciation and be happier in a relationship or when dating.

So, you’ve been dating someone for what you consider a good amount of time, and you really like them. You know that you would like to explore the possibility of marriage with them, but you’re worried about bringing it up, for fear of sounding too keen, or too pushy perhaps. Don’t panic, you’re not alone! The marriage conversation is one that any serious Christian relationship is likely to have at some point, but it can be difficult to know when to bring it up. So, when exactly you should you begin?

There’s nothing like a global pandemic to get us thinking about what we really want out of life and for many of us, one of the top priorities is to find love. I know from experience that it’s all too easy to abandon our boundaries and let go of healthy relationship practices when we start to feel a sense of urgency, especially faced with post-pandemic dating. So how do we balance the passionate pursuit of a partner with the patience that’s required in order to find the right match?

Before I met my husband, I was saving myself for someone special. My parents had told me to make a wise choice when choosing a life partner and instilled in me only to go out with someone who I could actually see a future with. I don’t think I really appreciated all that meant until now, five years on, and it’s interesting to reflect on things I wish I knew before I got married. I started thinking about new relationships and what advice I would give someone looking now for the best chance of a long-lasting relationship and marriage.

It’s tempting, at the start of a new year, to write a long list of things we’d like to change and then frantically set about trying to change them, while anxiously watching the clock. But impatience, from my experience, rarely pays off, especially when it comes to love. So, as we move into 2022, I invite you to let go of any worry, panic, fixed timelines or tight deadlines. Yes, I invite you to take your foot off the gas and relax.

Turn on the TV and it’s one bad news story after another which doesn’t fill one with much confidence for a brighter tomorrow or lead naturally to a positive mindset. Our world has changed so much recently that it can be hard to see how things can get better. However, even though the world may seem all dark and gloomy right now, I think it is possible to expect this year to be better than the last. How can you do that, you may ask?

It’s that time of year again. First come the festivals, like Christmas and New Year’s Eve, then come the New Year’s resolutions, maybe including ones for dating and relationships. Don’t tell anyone I said this but sometimes the mere thought of all these new actions I’m resolving to take makes me feel like lying down for a rest first. So that got me thinking: how about making some dating ‘anti-resolutions’ instead? You know, all the things you definitely aren’t going to do? Here are six dating resolutions not to make this year…