Dating - Time To Build Friendship

Some of the synonyms of friendship are companionship, comradeship, familiarity, closeness, alliance. Think about when your husband or wife is your ally - that is your supporter, helper. What a world of sweet relationship is potentially present in your marriage? Actually, I always have this feeling that marriage relationships should not be considered unless friendship is established.

Friendship is the first of the fundamental elements of the foundation for joyful relationships. Though friendships seem to have dwindled in the estimation of people today, it still remains an important key to the joys of human existence. If this is so important to have friendships with people around you, how about the person that may live with you throughout your mortal life and possibly in eternity as we know today to be possible for those who live according certain laws of God.

The time to establish friendship in the relationship chain is during dating. This is appropriate given that the basic qualities of friendship - supporter, helper - contain elements of sacrifice which the tender periods of courtship and marriage would not be able to bear. The statement, a friend in need is a friend indeed, connotes sacrifice and duty. This skill need to be learned long before the feeling of love come into the relationship. Love is a higher form of sacrifice. If one did not learn the elementary sacrifice, it would be difficult for him or her to learn the higher law.

Dating partners, therefore, should focus their immediate attention to becoming friends with each other at this time. If the opportunity to become friends during dating is not utilized, there would be vacuums in the relationship that would rob it of the ability to resist the challenges of the marriage institution.

Many relationship experts have advocated the idea of building friendship at the onset of the dating relationship as a crucial step to a joyful marriage relationship. This is wisdom as experience has shown to all who would care to search carefully.

In order to have true friendship with a dating partner, one must be completely honest, truthful and trustworthy. Friends contribute to each other's lives without expecting a reward.

Friendship does not mean that you should compromise to the wrong doings of each other. In fact, it is important that friends should be prepared to tell each other the truth even when it does not appear to be sweet to the ear, without fear of losing out on the friendship. When a partner does evil acts either to the other partner or to other people, friendship should end because it is not right to condone evil no matter who it is coming from - friend or foe.

One of the major challenges dating partners have in building friendship is premarital sex. The moment dating partners start having sex, they are not able to think creatively. Friendship requires creativity to sustain its growth.

Seek opportunities to help and serve one another in ways appropriate to the dating stage of your relationship. As you serve one another during dating, you deepen your friendship and gain the requisite skill for service in a marriage relationship.

If you would like help with your desire to build a joyful dating and marriage relationships, then you should be working with Francis Nmeribe who is a relationship expert and coach, public speaker, personal transformation teacher and author of four eBooks: "Foundation For Joyful Relationships, Growing From Your Experiences, Wrong Reasons For Getting Marriage and Action Quotes". He is an EzineArticles.com Expert Author. Francis also helps people who want to build multiple sources of income and confident self-esteem for the life of their dreams. Contact Francis now at http://www.successpublishers.com.ng, http://marryright.wordpress.com. Email: successpublishersng@gmail.com, nmeribefrancis@gmail.com. Subscribe to RSS Feeds and get a free copy of my book "Wrong Reasons For Getting Married".