Choosing the Right Partner: 7 Hard Truths I Learned Too Late

I am 40 now. I have been married for 15 years and I have a daughter. If I could speak to the 20-year-old version of myself about choosing the right partner, I would tell her one thing first: please don’t make permanent decisions just because you are tired, lonely or scared of starting over.

My name is Hashmi. My name and some identifying details in this story have been changed for privacy.

I grew up believing that if I was a decent person, prayed, worked hard and eventually got married, life would somehow fall into place.

It didn’t happen that neatly.

About twenty years ago, I was working in Delhi for a small startup owned by a family friend.

I had just come out of college. I came from a family where money was limited, so everything about my boss’s life fascinated me.

His house.

His confidence.

The way he spoke.

The way people respected him.

He was also from the same religious community as me. I was very religious then and regularly attended church, so that familiarity made me trust him faster.

Most importantly, he treated me well.

At least in the beginning.

1. Attention Can Feel Like Love When You’re Young

My boss was humble with me. Chivalrous. Encouraging.

When you’re just out of college and somebody successful treats your opinions like they matter, it can feel incredibly flattering.

He kept telling me the company would grow.

Until then, he said, we had to work from his house because the company couldn’t afford a proper office.

There were two other male employees there too, so initially it didn’t feel strange.

But I started admiring him.

Probably more than I should have.

Sometimes work went late.

Eventually, the boundaries between work and everything else became very blurry.

We started sleeping together.

There were moments between us that, at the time, I genuinely thought were beautiful.

Then his wife found out.

She confronted him.

And he told me what I wanted to hear.

He said he would divorce her and marry me.

I believed him.

Looking back, I wish I had understood something much earlier:

Being chosen in secret is not the same thing as being chosen for a life together.

That was probably my first major mistake in choosing the right partner.

I was paying attention to how he made me feel, not to what his actual situation was telling me.

2. Chemistry Is Not Commitment

The business didn’t do well.

He told me he couldn’t afford to keep running the company from his house and helped me find an HR role somewhere else.

Once we stopped working together every day, our relationship started changing too.

Distance grew.

After almost two years, I felt very alone.

Part of me wanted to leave Delhi completely and go back to South India.

Then I met somebody on a dating site.

He had a premium membership, which meant he could message me.

I replied.

We met at Café Coffee Day.

He was attractive, charming and almost my age. He was also an entrepreneur.

Our first date went surprisingly well.

The vibe was immediate.

Conversation was easy.

On the way back to my hostel, he invited me to his house.

We had a drink.

And we slept together.

I remember asking him before things went any further:

“Will you marry me?”

Yes, on the first date.

I know how that sounds.

But that’s where my head was at that time.

I wasn’t looking to experiment.

I was tired.

I wanted certainty.

He didn’t answer me then.

When he dropped me back, he finally explained that he wasn’t ready for a serious relationship. He was coming out of another relationship himself and said he was still in rebound mode.

That should have told me something.

Instead, I focused on our chemistry.

Days became weeks.

We got closer.

But the commitment never came.

Another thing I wish my younger self understood:

Good chemistry tells you that you enjoy being with someone. It does not tell you that you want the same future.

3. Loneliness Can Make Us Rush Toward the Next Person

I think this is something we don’t talk about enough.

Sometimes we don’t choose a person because they’re clearly right for us.

We choose them because we’re exhausted from what came before them.

I had already spent years waiting for one unavailable man.

Then I met another person during a phase when I desperately wanted somebody to say, “Yes, I’ll stay.”

That isn’t a great state of mind for choosing the right partner.

You start treating relief like compatibility.

You start thinking:

At least he’s nicer.

At least this feels easier.

At least somebody wants me.

Those things matter.

But they’re not enough.

I needed to slow down.

I didn’t.

4. Jealousy Is Not Proof That Somebody Loves You

At one point, one of this man’s friends started giving me signals that he was interested in me.

I didn’t know exactly what to do with that.

Eventually the man I was seeing found out.

It became ugly.

Suddenly there were accusations that I was double timing.

There was jealousy.

There was anger.

There was emotional chaos.

And because we had never properly defined what we were, I didn’t even know where I stood.

I remember thinking:

You won’t commit to me, but you’re angry that somebody else likes me?

That period affected me badly.

I was already emotionally drained from the previous relationship, and now I felt like I had somehow failed this one too.

I reached a point where I started having suicidal thoughts.

I don’t say that dramatically.

It genuinely got that bad.

Today, when I look back, I realize how much of my emotional stability had become dependent on whether a man wanted me.

That’s a terrible amount of power to hand another person.

5. Marriage Is Not a Reset Button

People around me saw that I was struggling.

The solution that kept coming up was marriage.

An arranged marriage would settle me.

A good husband would give me stability.

I could stop thinking about my past and start fresh.

At that stage, honestly, I wanted to believe it.

I wanted somebody else to solve the mess.

So I agreed.

I eventually married the man I’ll call Stephen.

That was fifteen years ago.

We have a daughter now.

And this is probably the hardest part for me to write.

Marriage did not erase my past.

It gave my past a new audience.

My previous relationships still come up.

I still get questioned about my loyalty.

I still get reminded about the people I was with before marriage.

I am treated in ways I would never tell my daughter she should accept.

Sometimes I feel less like a wife and more like somebody whose job is to obey.

I used to believe marriage itself would make me safe.

Now I think that’s one of the most dangerous assumptions I made.

Marriage does not turn the wrong person into the right person.

6. Don’t Have Children Hoping the Relationship Will Become Better

This is probably the part I feel strongest about now.

I love my daughter.

Completely.

This isn’t about regretting her.

It’s about understanding how much more complicated every decision becomes after a child enters the picture.

At 40, there are days when I think about leaving.

Then I think about my daughter.

Her home.

Her school.

Her relationship with both parents.

The family around her.

And suddenly a decision that might have involved only two adults involves an entire little life.

That’s why I want younger women and men to hear this:

Please don’t rush into having children because you think it will make the relationship stronger.

Give yourself time.

See how your partner behaves when you’re angry with each other.

See how they handle money.

See how they react when you say no.

See whether they respect your past without using it as a weapon.

See whether you can disagree without being frightened.

See whether you still feel like yourself around them.

A child deserves parents who made that decision with open eyes.

And you deserve enough time to find out what kind of relationship you’re actually bringing that child into.

7. Choosing the Right Partner Should Feel Safer, Not Harder

If I could go back twenty years, I wouldn’t tell myself to avoid love.

I wouldn’t tell myself never to use a dating site.

I wouldn’t even tell myself that the men I met were completely responsible for every bad decision I made.

I made decisions too.

Some of them were terrible.

I ignored warning signs.

I believed promises because I wanted them to be true.

I confused attraction with compatibility.

I stayed around unavailable people because I was afraid starting over would leave me alone.

Then I rushed into marriage because I thought marriage itself could fix me.

What I would tell myself is to slow down.

Choosing the right partner isn’t just finding somebody attractive.

It isn’t somebody earning well.

It isn’t somebody coming from your religion or community.

It isn’t amazing chemistry.

It isn’t someone saying they love you.

And it definitely isn’t getting married because everyone around you says it’s time.

Look for consistency.

Look for respect.

Look at how they behave when they don’t get what they want.

Look at whether you can be honest without being punished for it.

Look at whether your boundaries survive the relationship.

And please look at the person in ordinary life, not only when they’re trying to impress you.

I used to think the goal was to find somebody who would choose me.

At 40, I understand that I should have spent much more time asking:

Would I choose this person if I wasn’t lonely, frightened or in a hurry?

What I Hope Someone Younger Takes From My Story

I can’t go back and change the choices I made at 20.

I can’t untangle fifteen years of marriage in one afternoon.

And I’m not writing this pretending I have all the answers now.

I don’t.

I’m writing because I wish somebody had told me that being alone for another year would not have destroyed my life.

Waiting would not have destroyed my life.

Saying no would not have destroyed my life.

Walking away from somebody I had chemistry with would not have destroyed my life.

But some rushed choices follow you for a very long time.

So take your time.

Date if you want to date.

Meet people.

Have crushes.

Fall for somebody.

Make mistakes.

Just don’t make a permanent decision because you’re desperate for a temporary feeling of safety.

And especially before marriage and children, give yourself enough time to understand who is actually standing beside you.

Choosing the right partner is not about finding a perfect person. It is about finding someone with whom you don’t have to lose yourself just to keep the relationship.

wadaCrush is a no-stranger vibe check app, and looking back, it could have helped someone like Hashmi discover a partner already in her real-life circle who might have changed the game.

wadaCrush encouraged Hashmi to Join The Queue. She’d never know who’s crushing on her secretly otherwise.