How to know if you should marry the person you’re dating?

God should be your most prized “possession”; whatever you do, you should seek His will and glory. He, in turn, makes you holy, happy and joyful.

When in a relationship with a loved one, one must commit everything in the hands of God first so that He who can see everything can direct your path. Your decision to follow God should come first before every other thing, you have to talk to him about your dreams, your joys, your problems, burdens etc. But here are suggestions about things you should consider :

How objective are you?

Getting physically involved with a potential partner can significantly affect your judgement as to whether the person loves you and vice versa. Putting aside the obvious sinful nature of this enterprise, we’re addressing the question of gaining perspective.

There’s the need to take a step back and ask your self a couple of questions. How well can you honestly say you know this person? What really unites the two of you? So many people sit in emotionally manipulative relationships just because they are having “good sex”, and end up ruining their lives. How do you guys deal with your differences, how do you resolve conflicts? Is there an unhealthy dependency? Can you disagree lovingly? Can you help each other even when you’re quarrelling? It is easy for many unmarried couples to try harder to maintain a certain “image” than show work hard to understand, to grow and to empathize.

Serious plans

Do you guys agree on major issues like the size of your family, how many children you want to have. Do the two of you agree as to when you want those kids, maybe right away or in the next couple of years? What dreams do you individually have and how compartible are they with each other? Do you think the other person would be a good parent? How do they handle other children (if any) in the extended family? How good a sibling are they to their family members? Do they have destructive habits that might pose a mortal challenge to the prospective family? Such as drug use, alcholism, anger, selfishness, promiscuity, etc?

Money

This actually is a nobrainer. Are you ready to bear the financial burden of a whole family? No one should jump into marriage without some serious financial plan. RUnning a family can be expensive. You do not need to be a millinaire first, or have college money set aside but, you should at least have a stable career, a home and then plan your family life around the little you have in hopes of greater blessings in the future.

Faith

As we said above, everything you do should be directed back to God’s glory and pursuing his will. So, is your relationship centered on God? do you have different faiths? It can be very difficult to marry someone who is of different faith hence the biblical advice to avoid marrying a nonbeliever (2Cor. 6:14) . Marriage tough enough on people with minor differences not to mention those with a difference as big as faith. Faith should form the foundation of your life and family. Whist the Church allows inter faith marriages, She strongly advises against them because of the many difficulties they present within marriage.

External opinions

Have you tried to consult with friends and family members – wise people who can honestly tell you if you can live with the prospective spouse. The value of this is to add a little more objectivity in your decision-making process. If you have good friends who think clearly, it can help you a lot in making this decision.

Finally, don’t forget

Marriage gets exteremly difficult. In choosing a partner there’s no perfect “how-to” article or some perfect manual on how to approach things. It is something of a carefully planned leap of faith. You will consider these and many other things, pray about them and then take the leap. Knowing someone can be challenging too; it takes a lifetime to eventually know someone, and even then not perfectly.

You definitely see heartbreaks, lies and other kinds of difficulties in your marriage once the fairytale stage fades, but you will also be discovering something even more beautiful – love; in all it’s beauty, flaws and grandeur. So, do not expect everythng to work smoothly, expect – anticipate challenges with hope and faith.

Let’s sum up with Pope John Paul II’s beautiful words in his book Love and Responsibility:

“The essential reason for choosing a person must be personal, not merely sexual. Life will determine the value of a choice and the value and true magnitude of love. It is put to the test most severely when the sensual and emotional reactions themselves grow weaker, and sexual values as such lose their effect. Nothing then remains except the value of the person, and the inner truth about the love of those connected comes to light. If their love is a true gift of self, so that they belong to the other, it will not only survive but grow stronger, and sink deeper roots. Whereas if it was never more than “;quarrellingsynchronization of sensual and emotional experiences it will lose its there d’être [reason for existence] and the persons involved in it will suddenly find themselves in a vacuum. We must never forget that only when love between human beings is put to the test can its true value be seen.

Love and Responsibility by Pope John Paul II

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