So, are you looking for a suitable partner for your life and some dating during this festive season. If you are doing so, you are not alone, many men and women of your age are actually looking for their partners during this festive season in India. Some only look for good friends, some look for dating partners, some partners for marriage. However, even if you do find out someone for dating or some quick fun during this time, there is no guarantee that s/he will remain with you for your life.

Only last year (2019), we have seen a Kolkata couple who met in a Durga Puja Pandal on Astami got married on the same day. They said, it was love at first sight. While we want them to be happy in their life, these kind of sudden flings do not sustain in the long run. Moreover, we can’t ignore that it is the love marriages that fail too often compared to the arranged one, yet all want to find their love of life and get married to the one s/he chooses. So, the question is, what are the secrets of successful love marriages.

To find out the secrets of successful love marriages we have discussed this with relationship experts and asked people who had love marriages. The results of one of our previous surveys can give you the guidance on your love life, and provide the much needed tips to find out your most desirable life partner.

The biggest question for us was how to identify successful love marriages. Especially when marriages are falling more often nowadays. We have considered 7-years of togetherness as a successful marriage and the survey respondents were asked the same set of questions and they themselves categorized their marriages as either successful or unsuccessful.

It was interesting to find how possible common factors differed in these two groups.

How Did The Love-birds Meet?

To fall in love with someone you probably don’t need to meet in certain manner, love birds can meet anywhere or through any source. Even though social media is used extensively to find out possible soulmates, there is a big chance of coming across fraudsters in your way. On the other hand, when you know someone from your childhood, that is also not a guarantee of having a long-lasting relationship.

It is important to note one more point that if you are looking for a life partner in bar/pub that is not going to happen in India. Well, western MGTOW sites may claim so, but meeting your soulmate in a bar/pub is rare to almost non-existent in India.

Pre-marriage Courtship

Once you find someone in a Puja pandal or at a Dandiya manch, should you get married immediately? I know most of you will vote against it, but how long wait is needed before you finally marry your crush. Is there any formula or success mantra behind it?

Our survey reveals yes, there is one success mantra. When you look for a love marriage, you need to know each other to make that bond stronger. Relationship experts say you need enough time to know your partner and most importantly both of you need to know the others person’s faults and tolerate them. Because after your marriage these faults will be more visible and your marriage will end up in a bitter break up.

If the above survey result tells us anything, that is longer you take to know your love, better is the chance of sustaining break-up woes. But stretching it too far may be counterproductive, too. Our survey showed couples who stretched their relationship beyond 5 years failed too. Even though their probability of failing is less compared to finding a long-lasting partner.

Experts say it is safe to have a pre-marriage courtship of 1.5 years to know your partner. That is the minimum timeframe one needs to know another person.

Frequency of Date

For a love marriage to be successful, one important parameter is how much you understand your partner. So, it’s not only important that you know someone for 1.5 years or more, it is important, how often did you guys meet and how much you interacted.

When we are in love, the attraction level is very high. We want to meet very often. But how often is good enough? Or what do the couples who had successful love marriages do differently than the couples who fail in their love marriages?

This question on their frequency of dates clarifies that.

To know your love of life, more successful couples met at least once or twice every week. However, this factor alone can not explain successful love marriages completely as we see those who failed in their love life also met at least once or twice every week. Even though marriage counsellors say, to know your partner, you need at least two dated every week, there are certainly other factors that contribute to your marriage success.

Duration of Each Date

If knowing your love personally is the goal then the logical next question on the frequency of date is the duration of each date. In this case also we find mixed results.

In our survey it came out that couples, irrespective of whether they have failed or got success in their affair, spent about 2-3 hours in every date. That means in your love life, every week on an average you need to invest 4 hours or more every week for about 1.5-2 years (about 312 to 416 hours) and only then you can dream of success. Well, if other factors are not working in your favour, you may probably will fail as about 63% respondents whose marriages failed, also spent equal number of hours.

If the survey confirms anything for sure, that is, night out with your girl-friend may satisfy your sexual hunger, but will not give you a long term partner.

Location of Date

When you go out on date, which location do you choose? There was a time when people used to choose parks or some river side places for dating, now with reduction in number of parks they are increasingly going to multiplexes/malls and coffee shops (good for branded coffee shops that allow couples to spend hours in their shop).

Now the problem with this survey is you don’t know what couples were doing in multiplxes and malls. Are they really spending quality time with each other or they are watching movies and spending time in shopping? While shopping can certainly help you understand some of your partner’s choices but multiplxes and shopping malls hardly give you any quality ‘you’ time that parks and silent places offer. Ironically, about 29% couples who used to go to parks for dating have failed in their relationship, while only 19% had succeeded.

Pre-marriage Sex

While we understand sex and sexual compatibility is one important factor in every marriage, what about pre-marital sex? Are successful couples engaging in more sex or less?

You may think pre marital sex kills all interest in your partner, but our survey showed pre-marital sex is not a bad idea after all –

We find that almost equal percentage of respondents (those who responded to this question) who had pre-marital sex were successful and also failed in their marriage. In fact, those who were successful, among them more love-birds tried pre-marital sex before tying the knot. But then other factors related to sex becomes important as we shall describe now –

Sex Partner

So, we know that, Indian couples are having pre-marital sex or are at least open to the idea of pre-marital sex now, but while they were dating each other, were they having sex only with their partner or finding someone else for sex as well?

Our survey shows, most couples said this question was not applicable to them.

Even those who had sex while they were dating their partner were only sticking to their partner only. There were some who were screwing others outside their relationship as well, and some of them were successful.

Question is, if Indians are so faithful during their love life, why do they cheat increasingly on their married partners nowadays? Do they get bored in their marriage? Is it because their attraction goes away too soon? This is probably a subject of deeper research.

Frequency of Sex

Another important factor in sexual compatibility test is the frequency of sexual intercourse between the partners. In this result too we find that most couples said, they never had sex while they were dating.

If the above result tells us anything that is, maybe pre-marital sex is not a bad idea but going easy on sex helps in your relationship. But one more important factor we must discuss here and that is from my observation of present relationships. Since women have become bolder on sex, a man shying away from sex often be taken as counter productive for him. He may be seen by his partner as impotent and not interested in sex and may get rejected.

So, what matters in relationships is the sexual compatibility of the partners. If both want abundant sex and their want matches, then probably more sex may not be a bad idea.

How Fast Did You Get Laid?

Now, sex may be an important parameter in love, but how fast are the wannabe couples getting laid? Is there any difference between successful and unsuccessful couples? Can we see any trend there?

Our survey finds very interesting result to find out couples’ eagerness to get laid.

In this case, however, marriage counsellors fail to give correct guidance. They say, we need to have at least 1.5 years of relationship before going to bed. The couples who went to bed within sex months of their start of relationship were overwhelmingly successful and those who never had sex miserably failed in their love marriages.

Here the important point to remember is this factor depends on the sexual compatibility of both of you. If one is sexually frigid and other is active, then the sexual mismatch may lead to a greater frustration later. You will get cues about your partner’s sexual activism and need to act accordingly. If your compatibility doesn’t match probably a greater frustration awaits you in your relationship. Then not having sex may be counterproductive.

Hours of Courtship Before First Sex

The delay or wait time before first sex in every relationship is another important factor. It may be so, you were so overwhelmed at the first sight of her that you couldn’t restrain yourself, but as time went by you became bitter towards her and slowly both of you went apart.

So, not only calendar days and frequency matter but total hour spent together in a platonic relation is important before going to bed becomes important –

Experts say that one should wait for at least 300 hours before one decides to go for the first sexual encounter. This survey also showed us that the success rate increases when a couple waits for 300 hours or more for sex.

Conclusion

It is important to understand that there is always that ‘X’ factor that plays an important role in every relationship. Experts say, that is mutual trust, mutual respect and an ability to accept other person’s faults. In your courtship period if you can withstand other person’s faults and prepare yourself to embrace your partner with all his/her faults only then you can expect a successful long term relationship.

So, this festive season while you keep looking for your potential partner, don’t make the mistake of falling too soon for it. All the best for a successful relationship.