In looking for your soulmate consider your attitude; are you thinking: “I am seeking someone so that I can avoid learning the lessons of life, a partner who won’t make learn patience or tolerance, because the perfect partner is meant to make me happy without requiring any improvement or progress from me.”? If you think so, better you think again, and start approaching marriage and the research for your shipmate with a mood of entering a phase of life of learning many lessons and working hard on yourself towards purification. It’s not just about how splendid the honeymoon will be or how gorgeous you will look together.
Your success in marriage won’t depend only on finding the right person; it will depend very much also on being the right person: “If both the husband and wife are endowed with good qualities and live peacefully, then nice children take birth, and thus the whole family is happy and prosperous.” (SB 4.13.12, purport) It’s reciprocal.
Sincerely pray to find a partner who will help you in your Krishna consciousness. Cultivate the powerful principles of love, selflessness, forgiveness and tolerance.
Communication is the Key
The woman might expect that her soulmate or potential life-partner would already know all about her needs and desires, and that she doesn’t have to share anything; or the man might take for granted that his wife would cook breakfast, lunch and dinner (and few snacks in between), keep the house and his clothes spotlessly clean and jump as soon as he barks an order or a request. These are serious misconceptions: Men often don’t understand what the wife wants unless told; and women have their own minds, personalities and limits – and might have plans about their professional lives too. So, talking before tying the knot (and throughout life together) is essential.
Creating expectations based on imagination or ideology and thinking that they are self-evident to all and perfectly realistic is a very risky path to tread. Make sure you clarify expectations through some frank and open dialogue. The reality is that if you want the other to know what you think, you have to speak up!
Later we will provide examples of questions to be asked to the prospective spouse.
This is an excerpt from the Bhakti Marriages Course “Get Ready for Married Life for Men” from ISKCON Congregational Development Ministry, prepared by Sri Radha Govinda Dasi.
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