One of the questions I get from my clients is how soon do you have the conversation with the person they are dating about whether someone is marriage minded or not? Do they want children in their near future or not? My marriage minded dating advice is to have this pivotal conversation sooner than later.
Let me give you an example. One of the men I dated before I met my husband was a very nice person with 2 preteen kids of his own. We had been dating for three months and I was starting to fall for him. We enjoyed being together. Around the 3 month mark of the relationship, I had the conversation about my life goals and wanting to have children. He said to me, “babies? You want babies? Sorry, I’m done having kids”. What I found out his ex-wife brought two kids into his first marriage which he raised and they had 2 children (not planned) while they were married. Basically he was raising four children in his life and that was plenty for him.
So I had to make a big decision. To stay with the relationship I would have to give up my dream of having a child of my own. Even though I saw potential there, I sadly left the relationship. So I was determined to stick to my dream of having my own child. What I found out is that I had to have the kid conversation earlier than later.
So within a month of meeting Alan, we had a nice bike ride down the Crescent bike trail from Bethesda to Georgetown. We stopped for dinner at the Washington Harbor. I told him my goal for dating was to find someone who wanted marriage and a family. He fortunately told me he wanted that too. So at least I knew we had the same life goals.
Some people say, “Well I may scare the guy away”. My answer is, “If he scares away, then he really wasn’t the right guy. The right guy would say, “That’s what I am looking for too!” However, there is one caveat to beware of here. Sometimes the person may not be honest with you about their intentions (or honest with themselves) and will tell you what you want to hear to keep you in the relationship.
Are you willing to express what you are looking for in a relationship fairly quickly? Are there ways to find out if someone is interested in marriage minded dating as you are sooner than later? This curious coach would like to know.
The story continues…..
Intentionally yours,
Coach Amy
PS. LIKE my Marriage Minded Singles FACEBOOK page at http://budurl.com/marriageminded and get my free Motivated to Marry e-book. You can start interacting with other marriage minded people there!
