Chinese Zodiac Horoscope Today, March 18, 2025: Predictions for All Animal Signs
How To Pick Your Life Partner - Jezebel
And at first glance, research seems to back this up, suggesting that married people are on average happier than single people and much happier than divorced people. But a closer analysis reveals that if you split up "married people" into two groups based on marriage quality, "people in self-assessed poor marriages are fairly miserable, and much less happy than unmarried people, and people in self-assessed good marriages are even more happy than the literature reports." In other words, here's what's happening in reality:
Dissatisfied single people should actually consider themselves in a neutral, fairly hopeful position, compared to what their situation could be. A single person who would like to find a great relationship is one step away from it, with their to-do list reading, "1) Find a great relationship." People in unhappy relationships, on the other hand, are threeleaps away, with a to-do list of "1) Go through a soul-crushing breakup. 2) Emotionally recover. 3) Find a great relationship." Not as bad when you look at it that way, right?
All the research on how vastly happiness varies between happy and unhappy marriages makes perfect sense, of course. It's your life partner.
Thinking about how overwhelmingly important it is to pick the right life partner is like thinking about how huge the universe really is or how terrifying death really is — it's too intense to internalize the reality of it, so we just don't think about it that hard and remain in slight denial about the magnitude of the situation.
But unlike death and the universe's size, picking a life partner is fully in your control, so it's critical to make yourself entirely clear on how big a deal the decision really is and to thoroughly analyze the most important factors in making it.
Well, start by subtracting your age from 90. If you live a long life, that's about the number of years you're going to spend with your current or future life partner, give or take a few.
I'm pretty sure no one over 80 reads Wait But Why, so no matter who you are, that's a lot of time — and almost the entirety of the rest of your one existence.
(Sure, people get divorced, but you don't think you will. A recent study shows that 86 percent of young people assume their current or future marriage will be forever, and I doubt older people feel much differently. So we'll proceed under that assumption.)
And when you choose a life partner, you're choosing a lot of things, including your parenting partner and someone who will deeply influence your children, your eating companion for about 20,000 meals, your travel companion for about 100 vacations, your primary leisure time and retirement friend, your career therapist, and someone whose day you'll hear about 18,000 times.
Intense shit.
So given that this is by far the most important thing in life to get right, how is it possible that so many good, smart, otherwise-logical people end up choosing a life partnership that leaves them dissatisfied and unhappy?
Well as it turns out, there are a bunch of factors working against us:
People tend to be bad at knowing what they want from a relationshipStudies have shown people to be generally bad, when single, at predicting what later turn out to be their actual relationship preferences. One study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that speed daters questioned about their relationship preferences usually prove themselves wrong just minutes later with what they show to prefer in the actual event.
This shouldn't be a surprise — in life, you usually don't get good at something until you've done it a bunch of times. Unfortunately, not many people have a chance to be in more than a few, if any, serious relationships before they make their big decision. There's just not enough time. And given that a person's partnership persona and relationship needs are often quite different from the way they are as a single person, it's hard as a single person to really know what you want or need from a relationship.
Society has it all wrong and gives us terrible advice→ Society encourages us to stay uneducated and let romance be our guide.
If you're running a business, conventional wisdom states that you're a much more effective business owner if you study business in school, create well thought-out business plans, and analyze your business's performance diligently. This is logical, because that's the way you proceed when you want to do something well and minimize mistakes.
But if someone went to school to learn about how to pick a life partner and take part in a healthy relationship, if they charted out a detailed plan of action to find one, and if they kept their progress organized rigorously in a spreadsheet, society says they're A) an over-rational robot, B) way too concerned about this, and C) a huge weirdo.
No, when it comes to dating, society frowns upon thinking too much about it, instead opting for things like relying on fate, going with your gut, and hoping for the best. If a business owner took society's dating advice for her business, she'd probably fail, and if she succeeded, it would be partially due to good luck — and that's how society wants us to approach dating.
→ Society places a stigma on intelligently expanding our search for potential partners.
In a study on what governs our dating choices more, our preferences or our current opportunities, opportunities wins hands down — our dating choices are "98 percent a response… to market conditions and just 2 percent immutable desires. Proposals to date tall, short, fat, thin, professional, clerical, educated, uneducated people are all more than nine-tenths governed by what's on offer that night."
In other words, people end up picking from whatever pool of options they have, no matter how poorly matched they might to be to those candidates. The obvious conclusion to draw here is that outside of serious socialites, everyone looking for a life partner should be doing a lot of online dating, speed dating, and other systems created to broaden the candidate pool in an intelligent way.
But good old society frowns upon that, and people are often still timid to say they met their spouse on a dating site. The respectable way to meet a life partner is by dumb luck, by bumping into them randomly or being introduced to them from within your little pool. Fortunately, this stigma is diminishing with time, but that it's there at all is a reflection of how illogical the socially accepted dating rulebook is.
→ Society rushes us.
In our world, the major rule is to get married before you're too old — and "too old" varies from 25-35, depending on where you live. The rule should be "whatever you do, don't marry the wrong person," but society frowns much more upon a 37-year-old single person than it does an unhappily married 37-year-old with two children. It makes no sense — the former is one step away from a happy marriage, while the latter must either settle for permanent unhappiness or endure a messy divorce just to catch up to where the single person is.
Our Biology Is Doing Us No Favors→ Human biology evolved a long time ago and doesn't understand the concept of having a deep connection with a life partner for 50 years.
When we start seeing someone and feel the slightest twinge of excitement, our biology gets into "okay let's do this" mode and bombards us with chemicals designed to get us to mate (lust), fall in love (the Honeymoon Phase), and then commit for the long run (attachment). Our brains can usually override this process if we're just not that into someone, but for all those middle ground cases where the right move is probably to move on and find something better, we often succumb to the chemical roller coaster and end up getting engaged.
→ Biological clocks are a bitch.
For a woman who wants to have biological children with her husband, she has one very real limitation in play, which is the need to pick the right life partner by forty, give or take. This is just a shitty fact and makes an already hard process one notch more stressful. Still, if it were me, I'd rather adopt children with the right life partner than have biological children with the wrong one.
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So when you take a bunch of people who aren't that good at knowing what they want in a relationship, surround them with a society that tells them they have to find a life partner but that they should under-think, under-explore, and hurry up, and combine that with biology that drugs us as we try to figure it out and promises to stop producing children before too long, what do you get?
A frenzy of big decisions for bad reasons and a lot of people messing up the most important decision of their life. Let's take a look at some of the common types of people who fall victim to all of this and end up in unhappy relationships:
Overly Romantic Ronald
Overly Romantic Ronald's downfall is believing that love is enough reason on its own to marry someone. Romance can be a great part of a relationship, and love is a key ingredient in a happy marriage, but without a bunch of other important things, it's simply not enough.
The overly romantic person repeatedly ignores the little voice that tries to speak up when he and his girlfriend are fighting constantly or when he seems to feel much worse about himself these days than he used to before the relationship, shutting the voice down with thoughts like "Everything happens for a reason and the way we met couldn't have just been coincidence" and "I'm totally in love with her, and that's all that matters" — once an overly romantic person believes he's found his soul mate, he stops questioning things, and he'll hang onto that belief all the way through his 50 years of unhappy marriage.
Fear-Driven Frida
Fear is one of the worst possible decision-makers when it comes to picking the right life partner. Unfortunately, the way society is set up, fear starts infecting all kinds of otherwise-rational people, sometimes as early as the mid-twenties. The types of fear our society (and parents, and friends) inflict upon us — fear of being the last single friend, fear of being an older parent, sometimes just fear of being judged or talked about — are the types that lead us to settle for a not-so-great partnership. The irony is that the only rational fear we should feel is the fear of spending the latter two thirds of life unhappily, with the wrong person — the exact fate the fear-driven people risk because they're trying to be risk-averse.
Externally-Influenced Ed
Externally-Influenced Ed lets other people play way too big a part in the life partner decision. The choosing of a life partner is deeply personal, enormously complicated, different for everyone, and almost impossible to understand from the outside, no matter how well you know someone. As such, other people's opinions and preferences really have noplace getting involved, other than an extreme case involving mistreatment or abuse.
The saddest example of this is someone breaking up with a person who would have been the right life partner because of external disapproval or a factor the chooser doesn't actually care about (religion is a common one) but feels compelled to stick to for the sake of family insistence or expectations.
It can also happen the opposite way, where everyone in someone's life is thrilled with his relationship because it looks great from the outside, and even though it's not actually that great from the inside, Ed listens to others over his own gut and ties the knot.
Shallow Sharon
Shallow Sharon is more concerned with the on-paper description of her life partner than the inner personality beneath it. There are a bunch of boxes that she needs to have checked — things like his height, job prestige, wealth-level, accomplishments, or maybe a novelty item like being foreign or having a specific talent.
Everyone has certain on-paper boxes they'd like checked, but a strongly ego-driven person prioritizes appearances and résumés above even the quality of her connection with her potential life partner when weighing things.
If you want a fun new term, a significant other whom you suspect was chosen more because of the boxes they checked than for their personality underneath is a "scantron boyfriend" or a "scantron wife," etc. I've gotten some good mileage out of that one.
Selfish Stanley
The selfish come in three, sometimes-overlapping varieties:
1) The "My Way or the Highway" Type
This person cannot handle sacrifice or compromise. She believes her needs and desires and opinions are simply more important than her partner's, and she needs to get her way in almost any big decision. In the end, she doesn't want a legitimate partnership, she wants to keep her single life and have someone there to keep her company.
This person inevitably ends up with at best a super easy-going person, and at worst, a pushover with a self-esteem issue, and sacrifices a chance to be part of a team of equals, almost certainly limiting the potential quality of her marriage.
2) The Main Character
The Main Character's tragic flaw is being massively self-absorbed. He wants a life partner who serves as both his therapist and biggest admirer, but is mostly uninterested in returning either favor. Each night, he and his partner discuss their days, but 90 percent of the discussion centers around his day — after all, he's the main character of the relationship. The issue for him is that by being incapable of tearing himself away from his personal world, he ends up with a sidekick as his life partner, which makes for a pretty boring 50 years.
3) The Needs-Driven
Everyone has needs, and everyone likes those needs to be met, but problems arise when the meeting of needs — she cooks for me, he'll be a great father, she'll make a great wife, he's rich, she keeps me organized, he's great in bed — becomes the main grounds for choosing someone as a life partner. Those listed things are all great perks, but that's all they are — perks. And after a year of marriage, when the needs-driven person is now totally accustomed to having her needs met and it's no longer exciting, there better be a lot more good parts of the relationship she's chosen or she's in for a dull ride.
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The main reason most of the above types end up in unhappy relationships is that they're consumed by a motivating force that doesn't take into account the reality of what a life partnership is and what makes it a happy thing.
So what makes a happy life partnership? We'll explore in Part 2 of this post.
This post originally appeared on Wait But Why. Republished with permission. If you liked this article, subscribe by email to have our once-a-week posts sent to you by email. Never any spam or anything else.
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How To Find Your Vedic Astrology SoulmateYourTango
Vedic astrology originated sometime between 5000 to 10,000 B.C. In the Indian subcontinent. Unlike Western astrology, Vedic astrology follows the sidereal system of using constellations and planets to make accurate predictions about one's future and life.
One of the things vedic astrology can help you predict is the name of your life partner — more specifically, the first letter of your spouse's name.
To do that, you need to first pull up your Vedic astrology birth chart (also called Lagna chart) using a free birth chart calculator. Make sure to put in your exact time of birth and place of birth to get accurate results.
Vedic astrology charts look very different from the zodiac wheel of Western astrology, represented by a square within a square. The inside square looks more like a flower. This is the part you need to focus on.
Photo: Prokerala
Your first house is the top segment of this square flower. It has ASC written in it, which means "ascendant," or your rising sign. The number written inside this segment is the zodiac sign of your first house, ruled by the following:
To find the name of your life partner, look to the flower segment directly beneath the ASC house square. This is your seventh house. The number written in this segment is the ruling sign of your seventh house. So, if the number three is written here, you have Gemini in your seventh house.
2. Find the Lord of your 7th house.This is the equivalent of the planetary rulers of each zodiac in Western astrology. The only difference is that Vedic astrology does not use the outer planets Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto, as those were only relatively recently discovered. Here's a list of the lords of each zodiac sign according to Vedic astrology, including the Vedic astrology name of each zodiac sign in case your birth chart doesn't mention the Western names.
To find the name of your life partner, you need to locate the lord of your seventh house. For example, if the number 9 is written in your seventh house in your birth chart, then you have Sagittarius in your seventh house. And as per the chart above, the lord of Sagittarius is Jupiter. So you now have to find where Jupiter is in your chart.
3. Locate the ruling planet of your seventh house.Vedic astrology charts highlight the position of your planets and luminaries in the following way:
So, going with the above example, if you want to find Jupiter, just look for the segment where "Ju" is written in the chart.
4. Determine the zodiac sign of the number associated with your 7th house lord.Next, check the number written in the segment where the lord of the seventh house is located. Use the charts above to determine the zodiac sign associated with the number and the lord of this zodiac sign. This lord is also called the "depositor."
Continuing with the example above, if Jupiter ("Ju") is in a segment with the number 5 written in it, you need to find the lord of Leo because Leo is number 5. And as per the second chart above, the lord of Leo is Sun. So Sun is the depositor of the seventh house lord Jupiter in this example.
You have collected most of the puzzle pieces now. You just need a few last things before you can figure out the first letter of your life partner's name.
5. Write down the nakshatra and depositor of your 7th house lord.If you used the above link to generate your Vedic astrology birth chart, you will find your chart details in tabular form underneath the segmented lagna chart. Find the "nakshatra" of your seventh house lord and its depositor from this table and write them down. You also need to write down the "nakshatra lord" of your seventh house lord, and then locate the corresponding nakshatra of that nakshatra lord.
For example, if the seventh house lord is Venus and its depositor is Mercury, check the table and write down the nakshatra of both Venus and Mercury. Then check the "nakshatra lord" of Venus (the seventh house lord) and the corresponding nakshatra of that planet.
6. Determine the initials associated with those nakshatras.Now use the following table to write down the initials associated with each of the three nakshatras you have written down.
Depending on your birth chart, you will have one or more nakshatras and their associated initials on hand right now.
For example, if the nakshatra of your seventh house lord is Vishaka, the nakshatra lord of Vishaka is Jupiter, and the nakshatra of both Jupiter and the depositor of the 7th house lord is Swati, then your life partner's name will most likely begin with the letter R or T.
With this method, you can have up to three nakshatras and their associated initials predicting the name of your spouse. The first letter of your life partner's name will be one of these initials.
Also, if you have a mutable sign Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, or Pisces in your seventh house, your spouse will have a middle name. This can clue you into the cultural background of your potential life partner.
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Valeria Black is a tarot reader and astrology nerd with a dash of wicked humor on the side. Follow her on Instagram for more.
The 5-Step Plan For Finding Your Perfect Life Partner (That Actually Works)Joy NordenstromYourTango
There's nothing you want more than to learn how to find your soulmate — your perfect life partner.
But since you're no closer to finding "the one" despite your continued search for love, it's time you considered some new dating advice so you can finally get it right and meet the man of your dreams.
After all, you've learned how to pick all the important things in life — a great college, a suitable career, a reliable car, even a fabulous glass of wine. So why do you spend so little time learning how to make great choices where your heart is concerned?
Advice for how to cut through dating uncertaintyWhen it comes to deciding who has the potential to be your life-long companion, the dating process you go through often looks uncertain and complicated.
It's largely based on sheer initial chemistry, rather than any sort of logical, scientific, or heartfelt methodology — which is the key to building a strong relationship foundation and, ultimately, the best way to find your soulmate.
In the past, you've taken very little time to investigate if a person is truly a great match for you or your life journey, before giving your heart and mind over to the idea that they could be "the one" for you.
It also seems that the majority of people think relationship skills are supposed to be innate; however, studies show that marriage education, whether before or after a couple is married, dramatically reduces a couple's chance of divorce by one-third.
Yet, very few individuals actually seek instruction on the important skills needed for an interpersonal relationship to thrive.
When choosing your life partner and deciding to marry them, blindly following an "autopilot mindset" is bound to lead you down a rocky road.
That's why it's important to pull your head out of the love-chemical-induced fog and take time to refine your skills when it comes to choosing a life partner and maintaining a successful relationship.
The whole process of finding your soulmate and perfect life partner begins with introspection.
Know your relationship prioritiesWhat matters most to you? Whose relationships have you seen that you would like to emulate?
Take some time to get a clear vision of what you want in a relationship, and what you want in a life partner — both now and into the future as you grow with them.
The next step is to write down your vision in detail. Review this list and make sure all of the traits you desire could realistically exist in one human being and narrow down, where you can, any physical traits.
It's important to stay open-minded and realize there's a good chance your perfect life partner may not come in the package you had envisioned. What's most important is that you and your soulmate are aligned over core values and share a similar vision of what it means to co-create a lifetime of happiness.
Once you have thought through these issues, it's time to take action.
Here is the 5-step guide for finding your perfect life partner — that actually works: 1. Investigate your past relationship patternsStart by honestly acknowledging the patterns you have in relationships. What did you pick up from your parents or your previous relationships? How do those patterns play into your responses to someone else's actions?
This knowledge is key to being at your best in your relationship. When you are aware of how your specific attachments and biological, chemical, and communication patterns influence you, it will assist you in no longer being blindly piloted by them.
Instead, you will be able to better chart your own course, and smoothly navigate your way toward someone whose relationship patterns will work in harmony with yours.
Also, try to slow things down if it's a long-term arrangement you're looking for.
Physical chemistry often compels you to move faster than you should, and the chemical cocktail produced from great sex will more often than not give you the illusion of a strong foundation for a relationship that may not actually exist yet.
This is especially true for women whose emotional existence can seduce them into feelings of romantic love, well before actual love has arrived.
Many individuals who rush into relationships may often remain in a "better-than-nothing" relationship long past its expiration date because of the flimsy foundation it was built on originally.
2. Explore how real life-long relationships workAre you one of the lucky minority who comes from a loving, thriving family with parents who are still together? If yes, count your blessings, because many people don't. Who in your world has a good relationship?
Even if it's not perfect, what components of their marriage do you admire and hope to someday emulate? Get clear on what matters most to you in a partnership then check in with yourself to make sure it's a solid commitment that is based in reality.
If you are lacking in good role models, find a few new ones and pick their brains on why their marriage works so well. If need be, research great partnerships online and read about inspiring couples overcoming adversity to broaden your perspective.
Always be clear on what is important for you in a relationship with your future life partner.
Do you want to be with someone who enjoys entertaining, or would you prefer quiet nights at home cooking together? Important topics to cover before diving into a committed relationship include knowing where they stand on marriage, kids, and what their general vision is for the future.
Do they have a realistic game plan? Is financial stability a priority to them? Can you gauge whether or not they are devoted to making your relationship a priority in their life and do you know how they define a successful marriage?
3. Look beyond the first impressionYou want to be liked, so you put your best foot forward when meeting someone new. To a certain extent, that means you don't reveal all of yourself upfront. That is natural, and you can assume most people do the same.
Unfortunately, these masks can make it difficult to get to know the real person for several weeks, months or even years.
Your key to long-term success is determined by your choice of a good match early on. Your ability to be tuned into your intuition — using your heart, head, and gut as a gauge — during the first three months of dating is crucial.
By initially being able to "put someone at ease," you encourage them to more fully show their true selves, and in turn, they will reveal their true motives to you.
To put someone at ease, you need to be in control of your own thought processes first. Do you have a propensity to make assumptions or cast judgments when you start dating someone new? Those assumptions are most likely not serving your greater purpose of finding a great, long-term partner.
Whatever is happening in your mind is projected through your facial and body gestures, so if you are in a positive upbeat place, you will transfer those good feelings to your partner. It's important you know yourself well so your capacity to know others is more transparent.
4. Pay attention to detailsTo effectively decide if you have found a good potential match, you have to take on a role that combines the skills of an investigative reporter and those of an undercover agent.
Cultivate your ability to ask good open-ended questions. Be an active listener and stay tuned into your gut and heart, following up with more questions if they say something that makes you feel uneasy.
Remember not to make assumptions, but instead, allow someone to explain with more precision what they mean. With all that bombards your brain nowadays, you can suffer in your ability to remain focused. As a result, setting the groundwork for a solid, healthy relationship can be a prolonged and confusing affair.
And remember to put down your smartphone sometimes, too. Have actual conversations with them and become conscious and fully present when you are together.
5. Set goals and stick to themOnce you have found someone with potential and decided this person is where your energy can be productively spent, then the real dating begins. Finding your soulmate and life partner is not a dance. It's a project.
Know what your relationship goals are in the short and long term, and use your time wisely. Don't waste your time going to movies or other events where you are not directly spending quality time getting to know each other in the early stages of dating.
You don't need to determine if he is "the one" during your first few dates. Instead, your goal should be just to have fun with this person, find things you have in common, keep the conversation positive, and make sure you carefully watch how they react in different environments.
After five or six solid dates, you should then be able to confidently share your core values and the vision of what you want in a relationship with the person you're seeing. After you paint the picture of what you're looking for, ask them what they've imagined for their future relationship.
Continue to ask good open-ended questions about what you both envisioned for your future. Again, don't assume, and don't judge.
If something they tell you seems significantly off from your vision, ask on a scale of zero to ten — zero being not important at all and ten being essential — where they lie on that issue. It helps you quickly assess if it is a fixed value or ideal, or if they are up for potentially shifting their mindset on the topic.
Joy Nordenstrom is a relationship coach based in the San Francisco Bay Area, who helps men and women overcome attachment issues and build healthy relationship skills that foster lasting love.
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