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That sounds like it might be healthier. Okay. So: what have you learned from all this?
* Maintaining physical health is important to you, both in yourself and your partner.
What is going to happen if you find a healthy partner who later develops something that prevents them from continuing to be healthy? Work on that, think about it. The chances are very good that everyone will develop at least one serious illness in their lives.
What will you need to do to be able to support them? What will you need them to do? It's fair to need them to be working on their health - my family has decided that my primary job for the household is looking after my health. If I neglected it, they'd be validly upset with me. But I couldn't do it without their love and support.
You want a partner who values their well-being. So look for that in a partner.
* You had trouble this time coping with a partner who is grieving to the point of depression. You probably will have trouble coping with a partner who has depression. You may have trouble coping with other mental illnesses in a partner.
Not surprising. Most people do. Study up on the natural and healthy grieving process, and find resources for support for mental illness and carers of those who are mentally ill.
Everyone who has friends or family will go through grief, everyone who loses a significant portion of their health goes through grief, some people go through grief when losing a job, or moving house. You will at least need to support a partner through grief.
You may need to support a partner through depression or some other mental illness. You currently lack the skills. Hit your local library and learn.
At present, you value mental health in a partner. Consider whether you actually value someone 'technically sane', or would be willing to go with someone who bears a label like 'schizoaffective' or 'depressive' but has the tools and techniques to live with it in a healthy way. Either way, study enough about mental health to make an informed decision, and to be able to get help when it's needed.
* You want a partner who makes an effort to support themselves.
This is pretty damn realistic. Maybe instead, you want a partner who makes an effort to contribute to the family - think about that. Some people are happy to be the financial support while their partner keeps house, grows organic veg, maintains chickens, sews the wardrobe, and otherwise does six kazillion things that amount to a full-time job in and of itself.
Figure it out. You're the only one who can.
* You want a partner who's also HIV positive.
I honestly think that for you, this one is non-negotiable. All the others, you can probably work around. But this one, I don't think so.
With an HIV+ partner, you can just go ahead and kiss without fretting about whether one of you bit your tongue eating dinner.
Now here's some of my own
* You need a partner you can disagree with, without it becoming a fight
This requires that you develop disagreement-management skills yourself. They're usually available in books about communication skills. It's all that stuff you've probably heard about never saying "you always" and saying phrases like "when you do X, I feel Y'.
And don't expect to get it in the first few months of a relationship. You both have to learn how the other communicates, and you both have to learn what annoys and upsets the other, and come to some sort of balance. This can take many months, even many years.
One of the early skills to try to develop in a healthy relationship is the skill of discovering 'oh. shit. we disagree on this, and it's important. Okay, let's sort it out' and then sorting it out without going into fury level anger.
Without any anger is the ideal, but keeping things to a dull roar is acceptable.
Oh, and 'hang on to that thought, I'm going to the punching bag for ten minutes' is also an acceptable interruption to the discussion. Emotions HAPPEN. Taking it out on the punching bag can be just what's needed to clear both peoples' minds.
* You need someone with compatible life goals
Not 'the same' life goals. 'Compatible' life goals.
I could never be the wife of someone who wanted to be a major political or business force. That sort of power-politics life just isn't one I could be happy in, and it's pretty much compulsory for 'the wife' in those careers.
But I could be the wife of someone who wanted to do stuff like climb Everest, or sail solo around the world, and so forth. As long as he didn't mind me staying home.
I couldn't marry someone who wanted children. I can't cope with living in that level of close proximity, and it would be emotionally harmful to the children for an adult in their family to basically ignore them. "Wants children" is incompatible with "doesn't want children".
Discuss life goals. Discuss how they impact on each other. If there's a compromise that makes you both happy, yay. If it's not going to be possible to compromise, hug each other, wish each other the best in life, and limit the relationship to a strong friendship.
* You have to be able to be friends
Romantic love passes. A solid kind of deep love takes its place, but the romantic gloss passes. And when it does, you see all the flaws it was hiding.
You need a solid friendship to get you through that stage. And to get you through the rough times, when one of you loses the plot to grief, or you lose a job during a recession, or one of you gets a crippling but temporary (thank god) disability.
So .. yeah. Uncle Jester gave you the hard word. Now Auntie Seshat's tossed you a big bundle of advice on who to look for.
You'll notice I said nothing about skin colour or weight. DO look at fat, pale guys as well as skinny dark guys. The fat guy may be hypothyroid, have been struggling to get a diagnosis, and just starting treatment. And that DOES quality as 'looking after his physical health'.
And the pale/dark? Meh. The qualities I mentioned above are important. Once you find the right person, you'll discover that you LOVE his particular skin colour, eye colour, and that weird mole right on the edge of his eyebrow.
* Maintaining physical health is important to you, both in yourself and your partner.
What is going to happen if you find a healthy partner who later develops something that prevents them from continuing to be healthy? Work on that, think about it. The chances are very good that everyone will develop at least one serious illness in their lives.
What will you need to do to be able to support them? What will you need them to do? It's fair to need them to be working on their health - my family has decided that my primary job for the household is looking after my health. If I neglected it, they'd be validly upset with me. But I couldn't do it without their love and support.
You want a partner who values their well-being. So look for that in a partner.
* You had trouble this time coping with a partner who is grieving to the point of depression. You probably will have trouble coping with a partner who has depression. You may have trouble coping with other mental illnesses in a partner.
Not surprising. Most people do. Study up on the natural and healthy grieving process, and find resources for support for mental illness and carers of those who are mentally ill.
Everyone who has friends or family will go through grief, everyone who loses a significant portion of their health goes through grief, some people go through grief when losing a job, or moving house. You will at least need to support a partner through grief.
You may need to support a partner through depression or some other mental illness. You currently lack the skills. Hit your local library and learn.
At present, you value mental health in a partner. Consider whether you actually value someone 'technically sane', or would be willing to go with someone who bears a label like 'schizoaffective' or 'depressive' but has the tools and techniques to live with it in a healthy way. Either way, study enough about mental health to make an informed decision, and to be able to get help when it's needed.
* You want a partner who makes an effort to support themselves.
This is pretty damn realistic. Maybe instead, you want a partner who makes an effort to contribute to the family - think about that. Some people are happy to be the financial support while their partner keeps house, grows organic veg, maintains chickens, sews the wardrobe, and otherwise does six kazillion things that amount to a full-time job in and of itself.
Figure it out. You're the only one who can.
* You want a partner who's also HIV positive.
I honestly think that for you, this one is non-negotiable. All the others, you can probably work around. But this one, I don't think so.
With an HIV+ partner, you can just go ahead and kiss without fretting about whether one of you bit your tongue eating dinner.
Now here's some of my own
* You need a partner you can disagree with, without it becoming a fight
This requires that you develop disagreement-management skills yourself. They're usually available in books about communication skills. It's all that stuff you've probably heard about never saying "you always" and saying phrases like "when you do X, I feel Y'.
And don't expect to get it in the first few months of a relationship. You both have to learn how the other communicates, and you both have to learn what annoys and upsets the other, and come to some sort of balance. This can take many months, even many years.
One of the early skills to try to develop in a healthy relationship is the skill of discovering 'oh. shit. we disagree on this, and it's important. Okay, let's sort it out' and then sorting it out without going into fury level anger.
Without any anger is the ideal, but keeping things to a dull roar is acceptable.
Oh, and 'hang on to that thought, I'm going to the punching bag for ten minutes' is also an acceptable interruption to the discussion. Emotions HAPPEN. Taking it out on the punching bag can be just what's needed to clear both peoples' minds.
* You need someone with compatible life goals
Not 'the same' life goals. 'Compatible' life goals.
I could never be the wife of someone who wanted to be a major political or business force. That sort of power-politics life just isn't one I could be happy in, and it's pretty much compulsory for 'the wife' in those careers.
But I could be the wife of someone who wanted to do stuff like climb Everest, or sail solo around the world, and so forth. As long as he didn't mind me staying home.
I couldn't marry someone who wanted children. I can't cope with living in that level of close proximity, and it would be emotionally harmful to the children for an adult in their family to basically ignore them. "Wants children" is incompatible with "doesn't want children".
Discuss life goals. Discuss how they impact on each other. If there's a compromise that makes you both happy, yay. If it's not going to be possible to compromise, hug each other, wish each other the best in life, and limit the relationship to a strong friendship.
* You have to be able to be friends
Romantic love passes. A solid kind of deep love takes its place, but the romantic gloss passes. And when it does, you see all the flaws it was hiding.
You need a solid friendship to get you through that stage. And to get you through the rough times, when one of you loses the plot to grief, or you lose a job during a recession, or one of you gets a crippling but temporary (thank god) disability.
So .. yeah. Uncle Jester gave you the hard word. Now Auntie Seshat's tossed you a big bundle of advice on who to look for.
You'll notice I said nothing about skin colour or weight. DO look at fat, pale guys as well as skinny dark guys. The fat guy may be hypothyroid, have been struggling to get a diagnosis, and just starting treatment. And that DOES quality as 'looking after his physical health'.
And the pale/dark? Meh. The qualities I mentioned above are important. Once you find the right person, you'll discover that you LOVE his particular skin colour, eye colour, and that weird mole right on the edge of his eyebrow.
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