Danny

My fiancée and I got engaged a year ago, and our relationship has been so much better since then. Materially, nothing’s really changed. We already lived together, shared a credit card, had group chats with each other’s families... But getting engaged led to a mindset shift. We stopped evaluating each other (e.g., are they the right person for me?) and got to work building the best life possible with our relationship as a given. And that has been incredibly freeing. For example, I’m convinced that a lot of our past conflicts were just uncertainty in disguise. When we'd fight, it wasn't actually just, “we disagree, let's resolve this issue." There was unspoken subtext: “Is this disagreement a dealbreaker? Do I need to put up with this? Would life be easier with someone else?" Since getting engaged, we resolve conflict so much faster. We skip the “does this mean we’re incompatible?” step and jump straight to “how can we solve this as quickly as possible?” Another huge positive is that thinking about our future has become way more fun. We’re fully a team now, and we can plan and dream together: her future is mine, and mine is hers. The point I want to emphasize is that the only thing that changed about our relationship was our commitment to it. But that was all it took! Things don’t need to be perfect first. Commit to something, and by doing so, you make it great.