Building spiritual practice and growing in faith together is important in every Christian relationship, however, the timing and priority will be different for each couple. It can be difficult to know when or how to introduce this when you first meet someone, or a relationship starts to get serious. If you’re dating someone, ideally you should both have a similar mindset when it comes to spiritual activities, to avoid strife in your relationship. So where should you start?

Control can scupper our dating journey and our chances of forming healthy relationships. I know this from experience. So how can we start letting go of control and looking for love from a place of trust? Let’s begin by exploring how control can sabotage our love life, so that we have an incentive to loosen the reins a little bit.

When I was on tour during my work as an actor and travelling around the country, I had to do a lot of ‘church hopping’. I would try out different churches in each venue to maintain some sort of fellowship. It was a wonderful chance to try out different styles of worship, meet new people and find out more about the local area. But I was very much single during this time – and being a first time church visitor as a single person can be daunting, isolating and nerve wracking. So, what did I learn that could help?

Ambiguity in dating can be very frustrating. Mixed messages can leave one feeling upset, disappointed, and confused. Most of us have been in situations where you like someone, and things seem to be going great, but all of a sudden, things change. They start acting differently towards you, or, one minute they seem very interested in you and in taking the relationship further, and the next, it seems like they don’t have any time for you. So, what can you do?

Do you lose yourself in romantic situations? Are you prone to changing your shape to suit your date, morphing into the person you think they want you to be? Do you struggle to voice your needs and wants or express your truth when dating? Do you find yourself pleasing the other and abandoning yourself? If so, you are not alone and change is possible.

When writing an online dating profile, most people wonder how much to share. Should it be short and sweet, or a deep dive into who you are and what you’re looking for? If you’ve added a few of your favourite photos then you’ve made a great start, but there’s far more to you than a photo! What you write is where you can really show who you are and help create an authentic dating profile. So, if you haven’t shown the true you yet, it might be time to give your profile another glance.

Integrating your lives can be one of the biggest challenges in a relationship – whatever stage of life you meet at, family is a factor. Whether you’re just starting out in dating or find yourself single later in life, you’ll be likely to encounter people who are related to the person you’re getting to know – parents, children and maybe many more relations. And you’ll probably need to get to know them too! Where do you start?

Do you find your imagination runs wild after a good first date? Do you start visualising yourself walking down the aisle with the person you’ve only just met? Or maybe you tend to share too much of yourself on an initial meeting, only to regret doing so afterwards. These are common dating pitfalls, but the good news is dating boundaries can help.