Marriage/Relationships

My Advice To Anyone Thinking About Getting Married

Before you jump in — read this.

Be Ready To Fail

Think because you’re getting married you’ve got all this relationship stuff figured out?

Nope.

In fact, you are only just beginning.

Be ready for setbacks. Be ready for arguments. Be ready for family drama that causes strife within your relationship. Be ready for just about anything when you enter into a marriage.

In a real marriage, you need to be ready to fail several times over.

People are flawed and people make mistakes. Marriage should be a secure relationship where there is room for trial and error, there is room for failure, and there is room for forgiveness.

Getting married means you’re not going to break up or walk away over every little fight as you perhaps did when you were dating.

Marriage should give us the promise that our threshold for accepting someone’s idiosyncrasies and flaws grows stronger with time.

This is not to say that lies, betrayal, or abuse should be acceptable in a marriage. But this is to say that by the time you get married, you should understand that your partner is not perfect and will never be perfect and that’s OK.

There is always room for improvement. There are always going to be failures.

Marriage is a partnership where you can go through these challenges together and pick each other up on the other side.

Learn How To Listen

This one sounds really easy. But for a lot of people, it’s not.

Learning how to listen to your partner productively — really listening to your partner — is an art form.

Listening is not just the absence of talking.

Truly listening means acknowledging what another person is trying to express to you and responding to what they are saying in a way that validates how they feel.

Many of us expect our partners to sincerely listen to us when we have something to say, but many of us have not learned how to listen back.

Before entering into a serious commitment such as a marriage it’s important to at least have the desire to learn how to listen productively. Honing your listening skills can be of great value for a long and fulfilling partnership like marriage.

Practicing the skill of listening can be harder than you think. The next time somebody is talking to you and you feel the need to interrupt and react right away — try not to do that. Then, try not doing it several more times and feel what it’s like to allow the other person to express everything they wanted without you jumping in with your own opinion so quickly.

Marriage is one big learning curve and you’ve got to be able to adapt — especially if you want to remain married for the rest of your life.

Know Your Worth

Knowing what you bring to the table in a marriage is very important. Having self-confidence and a sense of self-worth as an individual alone without your partner — is vital.

In a marriage, you cannot rely on your partner to build up your self-esteem, create your sense of purpose, or get rid of any other forms of baggage you may carry with you.

It’s always important to enter into a serious, long-term relationship such as a marriage with a solid idea of who you are, what you want, and — most importantly — what you don’t want. This way you will not find yourself resenting your partner when your partner is unable to fulfill the needs you should be fulfilling on your own.

It’s not fair for a partner or spouse to have to fill you up in the confidence department if you are unable to do that on your own and vice versa.

Knowing your own worth is extremely important when in a relationship. Not only is it healthy for you as an individual but it’s also a great way to recognize the value in your partner if you already see it within yourself.

No one is going to do the work for you as far as feeling confident and satisfied as an individual. You cannot expect your partner to do that work. They already have that work to do for themselves.

Marriage is not going to give you the value or worth that you may crave. That comes from within.

There are definitely things to do, learn, be ready for, and think about before you jump into a lifelong partnership. How you choose to be ready is really up to you.

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