How will I know when I’ve met the person I should marry?

“How will I know when I’ve met the person I should marry?”

The choice of a marriage partner should not be based on “I get a warm,
wonderful feeling whenever we’re tighter, and I want to have that warm,
wonderful feeling forever, so let’s get married.” Feelings, as we have discussed,
have no logic of 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 decision
has to be based on solid considerations.

Will this person be a good partner? Is she mature enough to put her own
selfish desires aside to look our 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 of 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, 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’s tough to do that when 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 eighty 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 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 themselves available to married men and women. Do you want to marry
someone who has never said “no” to sex? If he is not good at saying “no” at
eighteen, it won’t be any different at forty. DO you want to worry about
whether or not your spouse is being faithful? What kind of marriage can you
have with someone you couldn’t trust on a business trip?

These are very important questions, and if you are not comfortable with
all of the answers, you should definitely not marry this person.
None of this is to say that feelings play no role at all in a marriage
decision. You don’t have to say, “Well, I suppose 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 also acknowledge this person as
a good catch.

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