Committing to someone in the romantic sense may be one of the happiest decisions to make in one’s life. Yet the question left hanging after making that decision, is for how long will the commitment last?

A romantic relationship is regarded as the stage to which a friendly or dating relationship has developed. However, there are those who prefer to stay non-committal even after reaching the stage of intimacy. Usually, because of hesitancy to further advance a relationship into the romantic stage.

Romance requires involving another person in making a decision; or becoming part of someone else’s considerations when making decisions. The hesitancy fortifies when opposing ideas lead to conflicts; preventing a couple from arriving at an amicable decision.

How Soon Should a Romantic Relationship Advance to Marriage

Romantic love is more demanding, and the willingness to commit to all its intricacies requires more than physical intimacy. When a serious romantic relationship endures, in which the connected couple weathers all tests and challenges, the next stage to consider is a more binding, marital relationship.

Not all marriages though went from dating to courtship, to engagement stages. Some were borne out of whirlwind romance, others were simply arranged between families, or entered into for reasons other than love, such as convenience. However, it cannot be concluded that those kinds of marriages are doomed from the start. Couples who are likely to succeed in keeping such legal union intact are those who have a well-developed social and emotional competence.

Understanding the Concept of Social and Emotional Competence

Modern educators of grade school students engage the class into actual gardening activities. The purpose of which is not only to give them practical insights on how seeds sprout into a plant and reach full potential as a flowering plant. A gardening activity also aims to develop each child’s sense of caring for other living things.

In their involvement, children become aware that they must take certain actions to supply the plant’s needs to ensure that their seeds will be able to grow roots. As they become more committed to caring for their plant, they will have developed an understanding that they must continue to provide the needs of their plant if they want to see it grow; from a seedling, turning into a young adult plant, and eventually, into a mature plant capable of producing flowers.

The sense of caring is only one aspect to develop to attain social and emotional competence. Another aspect to instill in a child is a sense of empathy. In learning to empathize, young minds will learn to understand how to interact with other living beings, along with their different behaviors and characteristics. A meaningful activity that can help children learn about empathy is one that involves caring for animals; usually of the small types like hamsters or chinchillas.

A chinchilla is a good example because unlike hamsters, the small furry animals suffer from human cruelty in light of their commercial value in the fur-trading industry. A child, therefore, will have greater empathy, once they get to have a picture of how the animals must feel if held in captivity and not as household pets.

The gentle creatures need cages that will allow them to jump and run around in, as well as for them to sink their teeth in without causing harm. In empathizing with such behavior, a child will seek to provide their pet with the best chinchilla cage, in the same way, that parents seek to provide their children with the best environment.

Still, social-emotional competence is not a cure-all answer that ensures a romantic or marital relationship will endure. Ideally, there must be cooperation and coordination from both parties. Nonetheless, if at least one possesses such capability, there is a chance that his or her partner would eventually acquire and develop the same trait.