I well remember dating with the purpose of getting married. It’s not as easy as some make it out to be. Generally, when a woman wants a relationship, the man RUNS.
I agree (speaking as a male).
I confess that when I was first married at age 21, my primary goal was to do the “right thing” and at least I’d get regular sex and we would probably be fine as long as we were committed to our goals as a family. I naturally grew up as the years passed.
After 20 years, though, as our three daughters all entered their teen years, she went kinda crazy. The result was that she wanted to move on. This put me, in my early 40’s into an apartment and wondering what I was going to do. No problem. I met the love of my life at my 25 year high school class reunion. We’ve been together 22 years and it only gets better with every year.
However, in my early 40’s I was looking for a relationship - and I found one through a long distance courtship (it was all emails and phone calls because she didn’t live in the area). She flew in to visit again and I proposed, and that was it.
And the funny part is there was (for the first ten years, anyway) ten times the passion of the 20-something relationship. It’s tapered off since then - a little...
When you focus on the person, and they focus on you, it simply gets no better. The rest of it takes care of itself.