Happy long term relationships don’t just happen. They can take a lot of communication and a lot of work. And all too often we sabotage them with our preconceived notions about how relationships and marriage are supposed to work. And sometimes it all goes too fast and we find and marry the wrong person. Here are a few thoughts about why you will marry the wrong person.

Modern Dating Is Way Too Efficient

Modern dating tools like Tinder are very efficient when it comes to hooking us up for a date. But as we wrote a few months ago beware of Tinder if you want a relationship.

If you want a date use Tinder. And if you want a relationship avoid dating apps. That is the consensus of several dating experts. Think of being in a department store and never being able to get to the checkout line because you continually change your mind about what you want to buy. People who only use Tinder or other dating apps to find dates often end up in the same fix, constantly changing partners and never developing a real or happy relationship.

Then even when you finally settle on the person you want to marry did you or they make the right decision? We also noted recently that online dating kills the chance of mix-attractiveness relationships.

It turns out that opinion about desirability changes with the length of acquaintance. Factors such as sense of humor and honesty come to light and overshadow physical attractiveness, especially if the physical attractiveness is not combined with other positive features.

Why you will marry the wrong person is because you will move too quickly from that hot first date to the assumption that this is the person you want to spend your life with instead of simply this was a great short term romance.

The Romantic Marriage

Throughout human history arranged marriages were often more common than marriages based on mutual romantic feelings. Today the general belief is that if the two of you in love it will all work out. The trouble is, according to a recent article in The New York Times, that while we think we are seeking happiness we are subconsciously seeking familiarity and that is why we marry the wrong person.

What we really seek is familiarity – which may well complicate any plans we might have had for happiness. We are looking to recreate, within our adult relationships, the feelings we knew so well in childhood. The love most of us will have tasted early on was often confused with other, more destructive dynamics: feelings of wanting to help an adult who was out of control, of being deprived of a parent’s warmth or scared of his anger, of not feeling secure enough to communicate our wishes. How logical, then, that we should as grown-ups find ourselves rejecting certain candidates for marriage not because they are wrong but because they are too right – too balanced, mature, understanding and reliable – given that in our hearts, such rightness feels foreign. We marry the wrong people because we don’t associate being loved with feeling happy.

So, can you really find the right person and marry them? Of course you can. Date lots of people and go out to have a good time. Don’t rush into a relationship out of fear of loss and love yourself and respect yourself first and foremost. Then you will be less likely to end up in a relationship that is simply a failed attempt to recreate the familiarity of your childhood.