SantaClaraUniversityTheWellnessCenter

SixImportantQualitiestoLookforinaPartner
Adaptedfrom: AreYoutheOneforMe?:KnowingWho'sRightandAvoidingWho's
Wrong.by Barbara De Angelis
Quality1:CommitmenttoPersonalGrowth
Your partner is committed to learning everything s/he can about how to be a better
person and a better spouse.
Your partner is willing to receive help and guidance in the form of books, tapes,
lectures, seminars, and counseling if necessary.
Your partner is conscious of his/her blind spots and childhood programming, and is
aware of what emotional baggage s/he has brought into your relationship. Its
dangerous to become involved with someone whos oblivious to his/her weaknesses
and problem areas.
Your partner has personal goals for his/her own self-improvement, and you can see
specific, positive changes in him/her over time.
Questionstoaskyourpartneraboutcommitmenttopersonalgrowth:
1. What have you learned about yourself emotionally in the past ten years and how
has it changed you?
2. What have you learned from your past relationships, and what do you do
differently now?
3. What are your greatest weaknesses, and where do you think they come from?
4. If I asked your past partners to list their biggest complaints about you, what
would they be? Do you agree or disagree?
5. What sources of help have you used in the past when you or your relationships
were in crisis (books, counseling, etc.)? Did these help?
6. How would you like to change in the next five years? What parts of yourself
would you like to get rid of? What qualities would you like to acquire more of?
___________________________________________________________________________________________
Quality2:EmotionalOpenness

If your partner cant identify and share his/her feelings with you, then s/hes not
ready to be in an intimate relationship.
Staying in a relationship with a person who cannot share feelings is a form of selfpunishment.
You deserve to have someone in your life who shows you his/her love and
appreciation on a consistent basis.
The opposite of emotional generosity is emotional stinginesshoarding love and
emotions as if they were in limited quantity and offering you tiny pieces of ones heart.
Questionstoaskyourpartneraboutemotionalopenness:
1. Do you feel comfortable expressing your feelings to the people you love? To
whom in your life right now do you often say I love you?
2. What feelings are difficult for you to talk about? What feelings are easy? Has this
changed over time?
3. Are there parts of yourself you dont feel comfortable sharing? Why do you think
that is?
4. When you do open up and share your emotions, how do you feel afterward?
5. Do you think your inability to express yourself has ever caused problems in your
relationships?
6. If I asked your past partner whether you were emotionally open, what would they
say?
___________________________________________________________________________________________
Quality3:Integrity
Honestly, integrity, and trustworthiness are essential ingredients for a healthy
relationship.
Not telling the truth is the most significant way couples kill passion and destroy their
intimacy.
People who frequently bend the truth may have a life isnt fair attitude, and they
consider dishonesty a strategy for getting an advantage.
Finding a partner who has integrity means seeking:

Someone who is honest with him/herself.

Someone who is honest with others

Someone who is honest with you
Someone who doesnt play games

Look for a partner who is up front about how s/he feels and what s/he wants, and
someone whose actions match his/her words.
When your partner is consistently honest with you, you will naturally trust him/her.

Questionstoaskyourpartneraboutintegrity:
1. Do you think partners should be honest about everything in a relationship, or do
you think some things should be kept private? For instance?
2. Have you ever been lied to or betrayed in a relationship? What happened? How
did it make you feel?
3. Have you ever lied to or betrayed someone in a relationship? What happened?
Would you do it again?
4. What things, if any, would you lie about in a relationship? An affair?
Unhappiness with your partners appearance? Etc.
5. If I asked your past partners if you were honest and trustworthy, how would they
answer? Why?
6. What kinds of things do you feel are inherently wrong, and what wouldnt bother
you (cheating on income tax, taking office supplies home from work, littering, not
returning money you found, etc.)?
___________________________________________________________________________________________
Quality4:MaturityandResponsibility
Here are some signs that your partner is mature enough to have a relationship:
S/he can take care of him/herself (emotionally, physically, financially, socially)
S/hes responsible
o

This isnt a conceptits an action.

When you find a partner whos irresponsible, you have, in a sense, stumbled upon a

child in an adults body. Lovable, perhaps even sympathetic, but certainly not ready for an
adult relationship.

Your feelings
Your boundaries
Your time
Your possessions
His/her possessions
His/Her environment
His/her employees, employer, or coworkers
Other peoples feelings

Questionstoaskyourpartneraboutmaturityandresponsibility:
1.

Are you usually on time or late for appointments, etc., in your life?

2.
In what area of your life would you say you are the most irresponsible (finances,
health, returning phone calls, etc.)?
3.
Have you been fired from your jobs, or have you quit? If you were fired, what were
the reasons?
4.
Do you feel you act more as the caretaker in your relationships, or as the one whos
taken care of?
5.
If I asked your past partners, would they say you were very responsible, very
irresponsible, or somewhere in between? On what would they base these conclusions?
6.

Do you consider yourself sensitive to other peoples feelings?

7.

Do you usually return things when you borrow them from people?

___________________________________________________________________________________________
Quality5:HighSelfEsteem
A person with low self-esteem loves INORDER to feel good about him/herself. A

person with high self-esteem loves BECAUSEs/he feels good about him/herself.
Look for these signs of self-esteem:
o

Your partner takes pride in him/herself

o
Your partner doesnt abuse him/herself, but takes good care of him/herself. The
more you love yourself, the harder it will be for you to abuse yourself physically or
emotionally. You can tell how someone feels about themselves observing how they treat
their bodies and take care of themselves (emotionally, psychically, spiritually, etc).
o
S/he doesnt allow others to abuse him/her. The more you love yourself the less
youll allow others to mistreat you.
o
S/he expresses his/her self-confidence by taking action in his/her life. The person
with low self-esteem will avoid action because they are scared to death of failing and
feeling even worse about themselves.
Questionstoaskyourpartneraboutselfesteem:
1.
What are you the most proud of about yourself and your life? (Do they have a
difficult time finding anything to say?)
2.
What kind of emotional abuse or mistreatment have you tolerated in the past? Why
did you put up with it? Would you tolerate it now?
3.
What do you do to show your love for yourself? (bubble baths, massages, special
vacations, etc.)?
4.

What are your worst health or living habits.

5.

Do you procrastinate a lot of the time, much of the time, or not much at all?

6.
What risks have you taken in your life? Are there any risks youve been avoiding
taking?
___________________________________________________________________________________________
Quality6:PositiveAttitudeTowardLife
Love is a positive force: It thrives in an atmosphere of positivity and starves in an

atmosphere of negativity.

Negative People
Always focus on the problems, and resist solutions
Always find something or someone to complain about
Allow fear and worry to rule them
Are cynical and pessimistic about the future
Dont trust easily
Positive People
o

Always focus on finding the solution

Turn obstacles into opportunities and adversity into lessons

Trust in their ability to make a difference

Believe that things can always get better

Use their vision to change their reality

Questionstoaskyourpartneraboutapositiveattitudetowardlife:
1. Do you feel people are essentially good or essentially bad?
2. When lots of things go wrong at once, how do you react? What goes on in your
mind? Give an example from your recent past.
3. What are some of the most important lesions youve learned about pain in your
life?
4. If you could sum up your philosophy of life in a few sentences, what would it be?
Has it changed since you were younger?
5. If you had to explain why the world is the way it is to your children, what would
you say?
6. Do you believe things always turn out for the best? Whether your answer is yes or
no, explain why.
Excerpted from SantaClaraUniversityTheWellnessCenterQualitiestoLookforinaPartner
http://www.scu.edu/wellness/topics/relationships/Relationship-Partner-Qualities.cfm

Text extraction based on Readability from Arc90 Labs, licensed under the Apache License, Version 2. Gear icon is licensed under the Creative
Commons license from wpzoom.com. All other rights reserved; patents pending. This extension is made available as a beta product and is a work in
progress. Please send us your feedback (bug fixes, new color scheme requests, etc.) via Twitter, Facebook, or email!