Increasingly people are turning to Internet Dating Services to 
find their mates. So for purposes of this article let's assume 
that this is the way you've recently met someone that you're 
now considering for a serious relationship. Let's also assume 
that you've done your basic due diligence (investigative work) 
and now that you've met and dated you believe him/her to be the 
right person for you.  In other words, you have reached the 
point where you are considering a serious relationship with 
this person. 

And this is exactly where you need to stop because there are 
a couple more things you need to do...   


1. Work together on a project

And preferably one with a due date. You see, you never really 
know someone until you have worked with him or her under 
pressure. Under pressure is when you get to see what's behind 
the mask. Oh, don't balk we all wear masks particularly when 
we want to impress someone.  For instance: 

Tom thought that he knew reserved Alice and outgoing Brittany 
fairly well. He had dated each a number of times, but not until 
he worked with them on the school paper did he really get to 
know them.  On Friday when the printer failed to get his copy 
out for the paper due Monday, Tom saw two personalities whom he 
had never known before. Brittany wilted, cried, and went home 
with a headache. Alice, however, refused to shrink. She said 
some things over the phone that would not have been printable. 
Then she collected Tom and two of his friends, and they visited 
the printer. They stayed there together until the copy was 
finished and the presses ready to roll the first thing Monday 
morning.   By the way Tom wisely chose Alice for a serious 
relationship.     


2. Get to know your mates family.

Our families are not only the factory in which each of us 
was built it is also the material from which we were built.  
Therefore, one of the best ways to know a person is to know 
his family. Someone once said, "The best way to pick a mate 
is to find a happy family and then grab any one of them." 

The Burgess and Cottrell study found that when both parties to a 
relationship come from very happy homes, their chances of making 
a good adjustment are more than twice as good as when both have 
come from average or unhappy families. 

An important part of this equation concerns the happiness of 
your own childhood. Although accepted myth makes childhood the 
happy period of life, careful clinical research has shown that 
the opposite is often true. Many childhoods have been periods 
of violently resented oppression and terrifying fears. We know 
that the basis for personality is laid during the early years. 
Therefore the happiness of your childhood is one important 
indication of your chances for success.. Here, again, you are 
not guaranteed or necessarily doomed. But it is a matter to 
which you should give careful consideration and work out any 
lingering issues you're still holding on to.  

However returning to your chosen, personal observation of the 
interaction between his/her family members is one of the best 
ways of determining the family dynamics. 

Does every member of the family feel free to use the house, 
even when this means that it will be cluttered up a bit? Do the 
members have a real affection for each other? This is not the 
same as an absence of conflict. Families who fight openly are 
often more wholesome than those who conceal their hostilities 
behind a smoke screen of frigid courtesy. But if the family 
members are fundamentally honest with each other; if each one 
dares to be himself, even, at times, an unpleasant self, there 
is no better sign.

But what if instead you find a strong and apparently chronic 
undercurrent of resentments, selfishness, and pettiness in the 
family? However you believe your mate to be nothing like them.  

That's called "repudiating the family pattern."  Unfortunately, 
there is no way around it.  One is either following family 
patterns or repudiating them.     

So is he/she following, or repudiating?" Remember Michael 
Corleone repudiated his family and wound up just like his 
father and then some.

But 'The Godfather' was a movie and the simple reality is that 
if you find your partners family to be distasteful, your 
relationship will be safer if he/she is repudiating it.  However 
on this issue the percentage is not in favor of it as, sooner or 
later, family dynamics are usually followed

Ok let's go with worth case scenario: he/she crumbles under 
pressure, and his/her family is nothing short of loathsome. But 
you still believe there's a chance for a relationship.  Well, 
it's not impossible if both are committed to patience and doing 
whatever it takes to make the relationship work and that usually 
means counseling to work on these issues.   

Alas, love is not always enough as many have loved and trusted, 
scoundrels. And the only reliable way of being assured that your 
chosen is suitable for a serious relationship is to test their 
behavior under stress and to uncover their family dynamics.