Commitment is the same as Intellectual Attraction, and is the Third Phase of Human Courtship, whose prime feature is that of two different people finding better success at getting to their personal and joint goals, than either one could have alone.

It doesn't automatically assure a sexual attraction or connection, and it doesn't automatically feature friendship or emotional attraction.

It is about success in reaching goals together, however, it can [Read more...] about Commitment

The Four Commonalities of Commitment are the most common four things that two people must share, in order for a partnership toward specific life's goals to go well. They are akin to a compatibility in intellectual attraction in a committed relationship. They will also seem common-sense to you as necessary for people to not be working at cross-purposes toward a goal.

However, you will find that each of them has [Read more...] about Commonalities of Commitment

It may seem like common sense that two people teaming up toward joint goals in partnership need to share some similar beliefs and things they value, or else partnership will not go so well. Even so, we need to think a bit about what a belief is, since it doesn't need to pertain to the fine details of what goals they choose together. It may be as simple a mismatch [Read more...] about Commonality of Beliefs and Values

Keep in mind that when we refer to intellectual style" in Romantic Dynamics, that has to do with how we process data in the form of analytical, historical, "left-brained" information versus creative, artistic, future-oriented, "right-brained" information. Intelligence is something a bit different. Whether left-brained, or right-brained, or hopefully both as a "style" of the intellect, intelligence in our model refers more to the sheer amount, efficiency, and fire-power" of [Read more...] about Commonality of Intelligence

Similar to a match of intelligence, two people as a couple need to be on similar levels in terms of their maturity level, or "character maturity," with regard to how much pathological narcissism and vice they have as individuals, versus how many character virtues they have.  If there is a vast difference in maturity level, this leads to more of a relationship between "mother and son" or "father and daughter," [Read more...] about Commonality of Maturity

Shared goals are tricky, because we need to understand the differences between codependence (and intimacy), independence, and interdependence in order to wrap our minds around a major task of intellectual attraction - to both meet our personal life's goals (called a "mission" or "purpose"), while at the same time, agreeing upon major, shared, "joint goals" as a partnered couple.

If you could imagine two circles that intersect and join at [Read more...] about Commonality of Shared Goals

We can't move on to Compromise or Collaboration as relationship skills before we master the Communication between us, and we can't work on the communication between us if one or the other person doesn't even have interest in us - Curiosity and an openness to new learning.

Without intimacy (two people being present minded at the same time), communication falls flat or is inaccurate, distracted, and includes erroneous or irrelevant [Read more...] about Communication

Character Compatibility is a different harmony between partners than an alignment of personality styles, or of polarity of masculinity and femininity. It goes far beyond shared interests, to be sure.  Since Phase 3 of Courtship - Teamwork, Partnership, and Commitment - are about aligning to be a successful team at getting to joint goals in intellectual attraction. Then the compatibility we are talking about must be about a joint encouragement [Read more...] about Compatibility

Competence is defined in the dictionary as "the ability to do something successfully or efficiently." It is a character trait and virtue that you want when you see yourself desiring to get to a goal quickly and with the least waste of resources, which is efficiency. Competence is a combination of the Skill of Collaboration with the trait (or Commonality) of Intelligence.

We finally move from a focus on each [Read more...] about Competence

To reach Compromise as a Skill of Commitment, we have to have first had mutual Curiosity to even care to learn and integrate goals with another person. And after that, we have to have some reasonable Communication Skills to be able to get across our goals, take in the goals of the partner, and reach some joint goals between us. Then we can move on to Compromise, a kind of [Read more...] about Compromise