How Will We Know If We Met The Person We Should Marry

The choice of a marriage partner should not be based on
"I get a warm, wonderful feeling whenever we're together
and I want to have that warm wonderful feeling forever,
so let's go get married".

Feelings, as we have discussed, have no logic on their
own. They need to be acknowledged,of course, but they
need considerable assistance from your brain.

Marriage means choosing the person you will spend the
rest of your life with. This, as you may have guessed,
is a very long time to spend with one person. This
person will live with you, eat meals with you, sleep
with you, and go on vacation with you. More important
yet, this person will share your children. You need to
choose wisely. The decision should not be made based
on feelings alone. You need to ask yourself some tough
questions.

The decisions have to be made on solid considerations.

Will this person be a good partner? Is she mature enough
to put her own selfish desires aside to look out for
what is best for the family?

Is he prepared to be a good provider? What is his track
record? Is he responsible enough to get a good job and
keep it?

Will this person be a good parent? Can you stand the
thought of your children turning out exactly like this
person? They will, you know. Children spend a lot of time
with their parents and consequently pick up many or most
of their parents' character traits. You had better like
your spouse's traits a lot because you will be seeing
them again in your children.

If something were to happen to you, would you completely
trust this person, alone, with the task of raising and
forming your children? This is not a pleasant thought,
but it is an important consideration. Not everyone dies
at a ripe old age with great grandchildren gathered around
the bed. Sometimes a parent dies and leaves young children
in the care of the other parent.

If you feel that you would need! to be around to correct or
lessen this person's influence on your children, then you
are considering the wrong person.

Does this person share your faith in God? God does not give
us children so that we can mold them into the coolest, most
popular people in school. Our job is to get them to heaven.
To do that, we need to raise them believing in God and in
His Church. It is tough to do that if only one parent
believes. Saying "this is right and this is wrong, and I want
you to ignore Mommy until you are thirty-five" does not work.
Small children ask about eight skillion questions in a single
day. The answers to those questions go a long way toward
forming the kind of adults they will become. Who will be
answering those questions for your children? Does
this person you are marrying have sexual self-control? Single
people sometimes have this idea that marriage is just some
kind of lifelong sex festival and that as long as they have
each other, they will never be tempted by other people. Wrong!
There are many times in every marriage when one partner or the
other is sexually unavailable-illness, the last months of
pregnancy, travel. There are also times when spouses, just
get on each others' nerves. At times like this, other people
can seem very appealing.

That can be dangerous, because there are plenty of very
attractive people out there who are willing to make them
available to married men and women. Do you want someone who
has never said "no" to sex? If he is not good at saying "no"
at eighteen, it won't be different at forty. Do you want to
worry about whether or not your spouse is being faithful?

These are very important questions, and if you are not
comfortable with all of the answers, you should definitely
not marry this person.

None if this is to say that feelings play no role at all in
a marriage decision. You don't have to, "Well, I suppose that
you would make a good spouse and parent, so ! even though I
don't particularly like you I guess I'll marry you'. You need
to be happy and excited about the prospect of spending
your life with someone. Your brain however must acknowledge
that this person is a good catch.

Don't listen to your heart alone or your head alone. Wait
until your heart and head agree.