Great Expectations: How to Find, Select and Keep the Right Mate

By Derrick L. Thomas

This manuscript was written to serve as a guide for finding, selecting, and keeping the "right" partner/mate. It is for those who desire and demand a highly functional "union"―with the aim of achieving a very specific set of goals and aspirations on various levels within a partnership. In other words, a partnership in a union of marriage ought to have an enduring and meaningful purpose, rather than a bucket of undefined dreams and desires.
My intention is to deliver a framework to find, select, and keep the right mate for anyone contemplating marriage or a significant relationship, and for those already involved in one. If you are not yet involved in a marriage, you will be much better served and armed with the content of this writing, thus far ahead of the game. I would like to focus my attention on those of you who have highly demanding careers, such as doctors, lawyers, dreamers, artisans, entrepreneurs, inventors, politicians, and high-level executives, etc. If you fall into anyone of the aforementioned categories, it is critical that you have made the right selection or select the right mate―if you intend to pursue your profession and take it to the top of its game. If you are someone that just wants to immensely improve your chances of getting what you bargained for by way of partnering in marriage, this book is for you.
You will learn how to create a framework for a partnership that serves as a rudder for your ship, so to speak, that will guide you from port to port―while pursuing the intended goals of the partnership. So if you want to preserve the precious cargo of memories, children, home, and dreams not yet realized, you better have a rudder on your ship (a framework plan) that will guide you directly to each port of call. Without a rudder, you risk aimlessly being caught at sea in turbulent times where your cargo can easily be dumped overboard. Even if you do find yourself out at sea in a violent storm (caught in the turmoil of life), your chances of making it to port are very high, if you have a rudder, because with a rudder (a framework plan), you can steer your ship out of harm's way and your framework plan will undoubtedly contain a series of emergency operations plans for such eventualities.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jul 29, 2022
• ISBN: 9781667826073

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Copyright© 2018 by Derrick L. Thomas

All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.

ISBN: 978-1-66782607-3

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

PART ONE: Finding the Right Mate

Chapter 1

31 Flavors

Clarifying Unconditional Love

What Unconditional Love Is Not?

Entering Unconditional Love

Art of Unconditional Love

Hard Choices

Final Thoughts on Conditional Love vs. Unconditional Love

Soulful Purpose.

Spiritual Gifts.

The Journey.

PART TWO: Selecting the Right Mate

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Master Mind

Valuable Assets

Free Love

Chapter 5

Learn to Count

Marriage Material

Know Your Purpose

My Personal Process

The Hook

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Marriage Archetypes

Soul Mates

PART THREE: Keeping the Right Mate

Chapter 8

Who is the Prize?

The Power Position of a Queen

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

How Can I Help You? Questionnaire

Chapter 11

Promises

Too Much Understanding

How I Love You

Chapter 12

Why We Choose a Mate and Partner?

Chapter 13

The Perfect Partner

Define Success In Advance

How to Get Them to Commit

Live Life for YOU

Chapter 14

Emotions

Emotional Attachments

Emotional Expectations

Entitlement

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Dissolution of Marriage

Alchemy

Know Your Customer

Falling in Love The Right Way!

Marriage with Benefits

The Lock

FINAL WORDS

References

Notes

INTRODUCTION

Marriage, just as a business, has the potential to be an awesome type of partnership. When it is entered into as a great friendship and backed by a purpose―it can achieve extraordinary things.

However, there is a master key to unlocking this extraordinary potential; it will require an MVP! Some of the biggest and most successful companies have an MVP, which enables them to effectively experience the outcome of why they formed their enterprise in the first place. The MVP is the beacon in the night―shining as a bright symbol of inspiration to guide you on your journey.

This manuscript was written to serve as a guide for finding, selecting, and keeping the right partner/mate. It is for those who desire and demand a highly functional union with the aim of achieving a very specific set of goals and aspirations on various levels within a partnership. In other words, a partnership in a union of marriage ought to have an enduring and meaningful purpose, rather than a bucket of undefined dreams and desires.

My intention is to deliver a framework to find, select, and keep the right mate for anyone contemplating marriage or a significant relationship, and for those already involved in one. If you are not yet involved in a marriage, you will be much better served and armed with the content of this writing, thus far ahead of the game. For now, I would like to focus my attention on those of you who have highly demanding careers, such as doctors, lawyers, dreamers, artisans, entrepreneurs, inventors, politicians, and high-level executives, etc. If you fall into anyone of the aforementioned categories, it is critical that you have made the right selection or select the right mate―if you intend to pursue your profession and take it to the top of its game. If you are someone that just wants to immensely improve your chances of getting what you bargained for by way of partnering in marriage, this book is for you.

You will learn how to create a framework for a partnership that serves as a rudder for your ship, so to speak, that will guide you from port to port―while pursuing the intended goals of the partnership. So if you want to preserve the precious cargo of memories, children, home, and dreams not yet realized, you better have a rudder on your ship (a framework plan) that will guide you directly to each port of call. Without a rudder, you risk aimlessly being caught at sea in turbulent times where your cargo can easily be dumped overboard. Even if you do find yourself out at sea in a violent storm (caught in the turmoil of life), your chances of making it to port are very high, if you have a rudder, because with a rudder (a framework plan), you can steer your ship out of harm’s way and your framework plan will undoubtedly contain a series of emergency operations plans for such eventualities.

Secret: The single best emergency operations plan is to let each partner do what they do best and stay in your lane and get rid of personal expectations imposed on your partner that s/he has never or likely never be able to fulfill.

Finding a suitable partner will be the first step. Selecting the right partner will require both partners to be in alignment with one another’s goals, as well as life purpose, and understand and accept that there will be inconveniences, heart aches―along with delayed gratification as you both pursue the partnerships agenda. Woops, did I say agenda?! Agenda may sound like a dirty word. To those already planning the wedding and have not planned the marriage, trust me when I say, trial and error will not be your friend as a substitute for a lack of a framework plan for governing your partnership in the name of marriage.

Four Suggestions on How to Get the Most Out of This Book

Reflection. Resist the impulse to read straight through a chapter. Periodically, stop and reflect on any subject matter that causes your mind to go―hmmm. Ask yourself, do I need to brush up in this area, how do I see myself in this situation, how does this one particular thing line up with my past experiences. Whenever you find yourself at odds with any of part of this book, resist the urge to immediately dismiss any of these precepts as false or unworkable. Allow the coming days and weeks an opportunity to offer you new perspectives that you could not have arrived at during your initial reading. You may just find that what you do not dismiss today as untrue, may actually end up serving you well at a later time. So, I ask you hold some things in the back of your mind as a―wait & see.

Study. If you are deadly serious about finding, selecting, and keeping the right mate, then it will require an earnest[commitment] on your part to fully absorb the content of this manuscript. This means, the amount of time and effort you spend coming into alignment with these precepts―will be in direct proportion to the amount of success you will have with finding, selecting, and keeping the right mate. Think of that time, when you were proud for having applied yourself―by studying for that one school exam that got you the score you were hoping for!

Desire.If you intend to get the most out of this book, there is one necessary requirement, one that is even more essential than any suggestion or practices outlined in this book. If you do not have this one single powerful force behind you, then none of the information contained in this book will be of much benefit. What is the one essential requirement? It is a burning [desire] to attract and keep the right mate.

You will need a burning desire to manifest a mate with whom you can partner with for a lifetime. Your burning desire is what will provide you with the fuel of determination to properly prepare yourself to become a [suitable] match according to your needs.

Review. You may decide to read straight through this book from one chapter after the next. Don’t. This is not novel intended for entertainment; it is meant to be an education guide for serious-minded individuals. Finish one chapter, then read it again and take some time to reflect on all of the points you feel that have useful value to you. Use a yellow highlighter pen to mark the areas of interest to you for quick reference.

PART ONE:

Finding the Right Mate

Deciding to Choose a Partner for Life

Life is complicated all by itself. The number of challenges faced on a daily basis can be overwhelming. The suitable selection of a mate and partner doesn’t have to be one of them. Just like everything else in life, the challenges are lifted, when you know what you need and why you need it. The operative word here is need. Not want; because our wants are many and our needs are few.

When it comes to finding, selecting, and keeping the right mate, the first thing that matters the most is knowing what you need. I’m talking real needs. When you know what you actually need, the burden of the challenge of finding, selecting, and keeping the right mate is removed. Too often, we confuse our wants vs. our needs. Some folks need what they want and want what they need. This type of thinking is unworkable and goes beyond a challenge, when it comes to finding and keeping a suitable partner.

In the selection of the proper mate, the questions that need to be asked are: What are you going to do with me, and what are you going to do for me? If your choice of a mate cannot answer these two necessary questions, I can tell you what they will do to you. In a nutshell, they will often―let you down, disappoint you, care for their own needs, and frustrate you to no end.

Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides. And when it subsides, you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is: Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion, it is not the desire to mate every second minute of the day, it is not lying awake at night imagining that he is kissing every cranny of your body. No, don’t blush, I am telling you some truths. That is just being in love, which any fool can do. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident.

―Louis de Bernières

Chapter 1

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The Spectrum of Love

Is love just a fairytale, or is it the real deal?

We all have a modus operandi when it comes to expressing love. The degree of dimension to which both partners are able to effectively demonstrate their expression of love to each other will be pivotal to the overall experience of satisfaction in marriage. Beware, the heartfelt experience is relative to each partner’s interpretation of the other’s expression of love, as so very often―we don’t necessarily love or return love in the same way. We essentially love according to our virtues. If you truly want a snapshot of how your partner is likely to love you over the long haul, my suggestion would be to make a list as lengthy as possible of all the genuine virtues you believe your partner actually embodies, those you have witnessed through their demonstration. This list will provide you with a baseline of what you can reasonably expect―as to how your partner will continue to express their love to you. Our personal threshold for loving someone basically boils down to projecting our own values, desires, virtues, and loving gestures that we excel at―onto our mate and others. Quite often, your mate does not particularly embody many of the same characteristics as you do or at least not in the same capacity, yet the conscious expectation is for your partner to return the love in the same way. It’s not meant to be a personal offense; it’s just that your partner simply gives and receives love differently than you do, plain and simple. Even though it presents itself as quite different from your own experience.

If you fall in love with the passion, gifts, loving gestures, mind blowing sex, doting, and attentiveness, you fall in love with the cheapest part of love your partner has for you. In doing so, you mistakenly blind yourself to the riches of the true love your partner has in store for you. The things mentioned above are like peaches and cream, and we easily become addicted to them. In fact, it is just a matter of time before the love that we undeniably crave so much begins to cause indigestion. These kinds of things are emotionally stimulating, and we have assigned a value of love to them, and before too long, you find yourself using them as a measuring stick as to how much your partner loves you. This is actually a poor metric to gauge your partner’s deepest love for you because these things come and go―as they should, only to return yet again. The types of things we love about our mate should be viewed for what they really are, acts of kindness, nothing more, nothing less. Acts of kindness were never meant to sustain you. The acts of kindness we appreciate so much from our partner are wonderful and certainly add joy to the relationship. It is the sugar high many of us crave and need from time to time. But, it is the store house of meaningful riches pent up inside your partner you should be falling in love with. What treasure you be may asking? Well, let me start by saying treasure can be very subjective. By this, I mean what your partner has of value may not be particularly viewed as valuable treasure to you, perhaps useful, but not highly valuable in a general sense. So, if you focus too much of your attention on the things that make you feel good, then you will miss those golden moments when your partner’s spiritual treasure is on display in full view, waiting to be claimed by you. In other words, people hold garage sales all the time, and sitting in plain sight for all to view are things worth hundreds or thousands of dollars to the person who knows what they’re looking at. Yet, folks part with their treasure for pennies on the dollar and even sometimes carelessly give it away, simply because they did not recognize the value of the treasure that has been in their possession all along. If you have, in fact, chosen the right partner, the treasure is already inside of them, and all you have to do is discover it. I am of the belief that the vast majority of folks involved in any type of seriously committed relationship―don’t stop to think of this reality. My guess is because they have been blinded by the door prizes, hence, the cheapest part of love.

The real treasure your partner has in store for you is the kind that improves your mental, physical, spiritual, social, and economic condition, and in return, causes you to be an even better version of yourself.

The best love is the kind that awakens the soul and makes us reach for more, that plants a fire in our hearts and brings peace to our minds. And that’s what you’ve given me. That’s what I’d hoped to give you forever.

―Nicholas Sparks

To know what kind of love you convey to your partner, observe the foundational purpose from which you choose to love your partner.

If in the course of loving your partner you seek to receive some form of acceptance or gratification, it would be deemed conditional. In other words, if your love is truly given or otherwise expressed freely, you expect nothing in return, nothing. This means, no form of reciprocation, not even a thank you. Now, I can hear some folk’s thoughts wildly racing; pondering― why whatever do you mean, all good respecting people have been raised to show their gratitude when someone shows love to them; and to that, I will agree with you.

However, the unconditional lover gives love freely, because they can, could, or should and take their pleasure in the giving. Unconditional love is meant to be given away with no expectation of gratuities of any kind.

For example, if you genuinely give money to a charity or to a homeless person on the street, you do so simply because you are able to, and perhaps it will provide a measure of comfort or aid, not because that person or entity can or will do something for you in return―not even a thank you, and by the way, a thank you should be optional.

Furthermore, you would not place any judgments on the recipient of your love for having received it that does not respond positively with some action to which you deem pleasurable or acceptable.

A person demonstrating unconditional love at its finest―is first and foremost secure within them self and does not require a thank you in order to feel good or to know their efforts are appreciated. The secure unconditional lover takes their satisfaction in the giving, not the receiving. S/he already feels good naturally. I personally look for my thank you in the evidence that my partner has benefited in some sort of way as a result of my actions and/or sacrifice; that gives me pleasure. In fact, it spurs me on to give more when I witness the acknowledgements of my efforts because I believe I am an asset in that I have cultivated my gifts and virtues to become valuable. When I invest my mental, spiritual or financial assets in my partner, I do so with the belief that I am multiplying my assets through my partner, and if I’m lucky, I will get a thank you—a show of appreciation. However, my nature has been entrained to rarely expect a show of appreciation in the form of words or deeds from my partner or (anyone else for that matter), because words do not mean nearly as much to me―as compared to the potential return on the investment of my time and sacrifices for my partner. My expectation is that my partners’ value will appreciate, provided I have freely and sufficiently given my love to whom I view as an asset. This is the form of appreciation I yearn for, not words or in-kind deeds for my offerings. I take my pleasure and joy in giving to my partner by witnessing her growth, accomplishments, expansion, peace, and joy as a result of my expenditure of time, sacrifice, and spiritual gifts. When she benefits from my love, that is my supreme thank you, the twinkle in her eye, the renewed pep in her step and increased drive; this is the type of return on investment I can take the bank.. It is inspiration, no different than when you suddenly realize the growth in value and return on investment of your home or 401k; it pays to give freely.

Some of us are predisposed to love our partner―as long as they are able to provide us with a constant supply of pleasure and satisfaction in a way that it is personally gratifying. I see this brand of love as contingent love―when you are only willing to give love freely if you get something in return. I’ll scratch your back, if you scratch mine. This is a very conditional type of love.

It should be clearly understood, couples generally do not love each other for the same reasons, nor should they necessarily. Everybody defines love differently, and as a result expresses love differently. There is no right or wrong way to love, provided it is unconditional. The common practice for most of us is to give love in a way that we except to receive it in return, which has a tendency to result in emotional disappointment when not reciprocated in kind. This practice of love succeeds best when both partners happen to share virtually identical views and expectations with respect to their love styles.

31 Flavors

The definition of love for many of us is without a doubt subjective and comes in more flavors than Baskin-Robbins could ever imagine.

But what is love really? Given that people define love so very differently, it is a common trap for couples to assume―they are speaking about the same thing. And because people define love differently, they show it differently and have different expectations of what it should look