Who Should I Marry?
Who Should I Marry?
Simple guidelines avert a lifetime of heartache.
Listen in: Who Should I Marry?
In the first episode of our new series, Making Marriage Work, Lynn and Austin discuss why you should go into marriage with your eyes wide open – paying attention to the qualities of a potential spouse, being aware of red flags and potential areas of conflict, and cultivating positive character traits in yourself.
As pastors and therapists, we’ve done a lot of pre-marital and couples counseling. We also teach a marriage class at our church. What we’ve discovered over the years is that people will do what they WANT to do. Which means that if we tell someone what to do, or even try to offer advice, they may become resistant and even more determined to make their own decision.
Instead of trying to tell people who they should or shouldn’t marry, we have couples take an assessment in our marriage class called Prepare/Enrich that gives them clarity about their similarities and differences, so that they go into marriage with what we call “informed consent”.
For this episode, we want to look at four main questions that we think you should be asking yourself if you're interested in getting married:
What is the purpose of dating and how should I go about it?
What qualities should I be looking for in a potential mate?
What red flags should I be looking for in the dating process?
How can I prepare myself for dating and marriage?
The Purpose of Dating
Many people don’t consider this when entering a relationship, but the purpose of dating is to look for a spouse. Dating is done with the end in mind, and the end result is finding someone to marry. You don’t need to figure out if this person is “the one” after the first date. That sets up impossible expectations for both you and the other person. But in the modern dating world, people often date person after person because they like the drama that comes with a breakup and then finding someone new.
If you’re a believer, and you want to go about dating in a way that glorifies God and gives your relationship a chance to have a strong foundation, you need to understand the principle of bonding and attraction. This involves your physiology, your brain, your body, your heart, your mind, your soul, and your sexuality – they all come together in the three stages of the dating process:
The first stage is initial attraction.
The second stage is bonding.
The third stage is preparation for marriage.
How this unfolds, and the timeline with which it unfolds, is going to look different for every couple.
In the first stage of initial attraction, you're spending time together in social settings. Maybe you're going for coffee or lunch together, but internally, you’re evaluating them at a distance: is this somebody that I want to spend more time with? Am I attracted to this person mentally, emotionally, physically? Do we share common interests? Are our lives going in similar directions? Do we share a common bond of faith?
If there are no obvious red flags in the first stage, you will move into the next stage, which is bonding. Here's where you're asking deeper questions. You're spending time together building that friendship. You're sharing your thoughts and feelings with them. You're also seeking the advice of family members and friends that know and love you, and asking questions like, “Do their words match up with their actions? Are they trustworthy?” This is a very critical stage where your eyes should be wide open.
The final stage in the process of dating is making a decision: Am I going to marry this person? If you decide yes, you get engaged. Now you're in the preparation for marriage phase. This is where you’ve made a commitment for a future together. You're planning a wedding. You’re deciding where you will live and work based on your future with this person. Your lives are intertwined, but you are not married yet.
At any time in these three phases, you can choose to end the relationship. You may have spent a lot of time together, and you may have invested resources and money and gotten to know each other’s families. But you are not married yet until you walk down the aisle and say those vows. Ending a relationship in this stage can be painful, but it may prevent more pain in the future if you are moving ahead with someone that is not a good fit for your marriage partner.
Qualities of a Potential Mate
If you're a Christian and somebody who wants to love and follow Jesus, then you are commanded to only date someone who's a Christian. Commanded is a strong word, but this is straight from Scripture, which is authoritative and binding for Christians. 2 Corinthians 6:14 says, “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers”.
We’re using Jonathan Pokluda’s book, Outdated, for a lot of the information we’re sharing in this episode. In the book, he gives five specific qualities to look for in a potential mate. You’ll want to look for these qualities on a consistent basis over time – nobody’s perfect, and people are going to fail sometimes, but these are general traits to look for:
Self-control. This person will be a gentle, kind peacemaker. They don’t have frequent emotional or physical outbursts.
Responsible. They have a job or are actively looking for one, and being wise about how they spend, save, and give their money. They consistently keep their word and honor commitments.
Obedient. This means they take the commands of Jesus and the biblical ethics seriously. They are open to listening and learning from others, especially to older, wiser mentors.
Serving. They use their time and talent to help others, especially when they receive nothing in return. They regularly ask where and how they can help you.
Steady. Overall, they are reliable, trustworthy, and able to be counted on.
Red Flags to Watch Out For
The first red flag is bad money management. Do they make unwise financial decisions, or do they seem unaware or unconcerned about how money is spent or handled? Do they have a lot of debt? If so, do they have a plan to get out of debt? Legally, when you marry someone, you take on their financial debt, so this is not something to overlook.
The second red flag is dishonesty of any kind, including cheating. Has this person lied to you? People may think that this red flag is obvious, but often, when we are ‘in love’, we lose our ability to see someone clearly, and we make excuses for behavior that should not be tolerated.
A third red flag is, does this person only want you to spend time with them? When someone wants to isolate you, they will pull you away from your support systems by displaying jealousy or making you feel guilty for spending time with family and friends.
The fourth red flag is any type of controlling behavior. Do they monitor your location and activities? Do they try to control what you eat, what you wear, and where you go? This is subtle, but it’s abusive behavior that can get worse over time. Often we think of abuse as only physical, but it can be emotional, financial, spiritual, verbal, and sexual.
The fifth red flag to consider is the presence of any kind of addiction or substance abuse issues, including but not limited to drugs, alcohol, gambling, and pornography. Relationships with these elements should be halted until the addiction is dealt with, and renewed with caution, if at all.
Remember that people are on their best behavior when dating – it’s a time of great deception for couples. Whatever issues you see during dating will only intensify after marriage.
Preparing Yourself for Dating and Marriage
Start by working on yourself, with the help of a trusted community around you. Practice the five godly qualities mentioned above with friends and family. Have wise friends and mentors in your life. Set a pattern of asking for their opinions so that when you are in a relationship, you feel comfortable seeking the counsel of others.
Another way to prepare yourself for marriage is to understand some truths about the human heart. Lynn shares some advice she got from each of her parents when she was in the middle of unhealthy relationships. At age 16, she thought she was ‘in love’, but when she shared that with her mom, her mom gently replied, “It’s possible to be ‘in love’ with the wrong person”. This concept validated Lynn’s feelings but also gave her the ability to see that her feelings were misdirected, and she needed to break off the relationship.
Later, in college, she found herself in yet another unhealthy relationship. As she was talking to her dad about the problems she was facing, her dad said, “Lynn, no matter how long you boil sand, it will never become rice”. Once again, this piece of wisdom allowed her to see that sometimes, people can’t or won’t change. This helped Lynn visualize her future and see that the problems weren’t going to get better, which strengthened her resolve to end the relationship.
The bottom line is that when you are considering marriage, do you have PEACE about the relationship? That doesn't mean that you’ve found someone perfect. It doesn’t mean that there won't be problems. It doesn't mean that you can mitigate all unforeseen circumstances. But if you have confirmation of peace in your spirit, then when you hit troubling times in marriage, you have a foundation you can rely on.
As you’ve contemplated these dating questions and red flags, maybe you’ve realized that a relationship you’re in should come to an end. Or maybe it’s time to start up a relationship. Perhaps you’ve been holding unattainable standards and it’s time to make a choice.
We pray that God moves you in the direction that he wants you to go, and hope you stay tuned as we continue our Making Marriage Work series and share what it looks like to live in the reality of marriage!