How to Know If Your Partner Is Ready For Marriage.

Naturally, the maturity that is expected of you is also expected of your partner. But since none of us ever reach the same level of maturity in the same area, this makes it difficult to judge whether someone else is mature.

The fact that you are reading this blog of this nature indicates that you want to avoid the mistakes and pitfalls others have fallen into. So for your benefit certain personality types that you should be looking into in your mate are discussed here:

Commitment to Love

For love to be a rich and rewarding experience it must be based on a multi-faceted attraction and interaction between the two people. It cannot be based on something which involves only a fraction of the time they spend together.

Commitment to Growth

All couples are to some degree incompatible. It is not the conflict a couple face in life but the degree of commitment to work through these conflicts successfully which makes or breaks marriages. A capacity to adjust to changing needs and nurture each other and the relationship during the various stages of the marital life cycle, demands flexibility and a commitment to communicating and meeting new needs as they arise.

A Commitment to the Relationship

In the past a good wife was defined in functional terms – cook, mother, and nurse. A good husband served as a provider, and hard worker. But today what is expected and needed are interpersonal skills – the abilities to love, nurture, communicate, and support each other every day and through each crisis. The divorce rate to a large extent reflects the inability of individuals to adjust from old roles to these new and more fully intimate ones.

Commitment to Each Other’s Needs

If marriage means anything it must involve caring for one another human being deeply, by putting aside self interest in favor of the spouse’s interests. When this caring is neglected trust breaks down and the foundation of the relationship crack. Trust is essential in order to build any relationship. Trust develops as partners prove trustworthy. Over a period of time each partner learns that the risk of loving, selflessly caring for, and sharing oneself vulnerably with the other will be met with respect, appreciation and unconditional acceptance.

Sex and Sexuality

Sexual intercourse is not merely a biological act – at its deepest meaning it is a unique interpersonal encounter when two people come together, not just two bodies. Sex is not merely mutual orgasm – it is a language. Sexual intimacy is a disclosure of the deepest awareness of love, and thus serves to renew and refresh the love relationship. In a broken world, with all of its broken feelings, relationships, and misunderstandings, sex communicates a message of forgiveness and healing restoration of the relationship.

However, still others ignore all warning signals in a relationship because of their romantic ideas about love. They blindly blunder on, holding on to their fairy-tale ideas and refusing any evidence that their marriage might not be wise. Be patient. If anything can withstand testing, love can. Allow God to work in your behalf. REMEMBER, God always bestows the best on those who leave the choice to Him.