You are ready to get married when you are ready to paint your life like a masterpiece, making your relationship its radiant center.
Introduction
Partnering for life is the single most important decision you will ever make. The person you are considering marrying is the person with whom you will spend more time, more money, and more effort than any other person in your life. You’ll spend so much time with them that the things you find quirky and adorable today will stop being quirky and adorable, and hopefully, you will love them nonetheless.
In the open 21st-century global world we now live in, marriage is not a requirement. With just about half of all marriages ending in divorce, I am not even sure that it is advisable. However, as the eighty-five-year investigation into the root causes of happiness, conducted by researchers at Harvard University shows, along with countless other studies of its kind, settling into a committed, loving relationship is the single most effective way to increase your lifespan and your sense of well-being along the way.
So then, how do you know when you are ready to tie the knot?
Let me tell you what not being ready looks like…
It looks like me at age twenty-three, the first time I stood at the altar (well actually, in my case it was a huppah, the Jewish wedding canopy you see in the movies).
At twenty-three, I was pretty madly in love with my now ex-husband. I was also young. Very young. In 21st-century terms, when we know that the prefrontal cortex, responsible for general inhibition and rational decision-making does not come fully online until age twenty-five, age twenty-three is a child. I was arguably speaking, a child, and if you are too, stop reading right now, invite your partner to travel the world with you or to move in together and check back here when you have lived a little.
Why to NOT “Shit-or-Get-Off-the Pot”
By the time I stood under the huppah, my ex and I had already been together for six years. We saw ourselves in a clear, shit-or-get-off-the-pot situation.
Let me tell you: Shit-or-get-off-the-pot is NOT a good reason to get married.
When we stood under the huppah, our parents having spent thousands of dollars on giving us the celebration of our dreams (because, at twenty-three, neither I nor my ex had thousands of dollars to burn on those few hours of our lives), we were not more than twelve months from our most recent breakup. There was also some serious depression, a suicide attempt, and the death of a dear friend in the mix. And still, there we were, about to make the most important decision of our lives, acting like we knew just what we were doing.
As I navigated the tricky process of what I call my Compassionate Divorce, it was not anger with my ex that was hardest for me to metabolize. Rather, it was anger with my parents, for not sitting me down on that day, or on any of the days during the year between when I told them that not only had my ex and I got back together, but that we were going to also get married, to tell me to slow down.
I needed help getting clear about the fact that at twenty-three, with all of the trauma I had experienced, I was in absolutely no position to be making a life-long decision. It was only my sweet, wise, now very happily married younger sister who tried, but in that, I was the big sister, I thought I knew better than she did. I was wrong.
In my forthcoming book, Compassionate Divorce, I offer a view of marriage that is something other than a life-long commitment. The longer we human beings live, the more that the idea of one partner for an entire lifetime will become absurd. I do not believe that marriage is the holy grail. In that I am not Catholic, I do not even believe that it is a sacrament, a sacred rite of passage, sealed by God. But, especially if you plan to have children, I do believe that marriage is crucially important. I believe that it is the decision that will have the most widespread impact on your happiness throughout your life. Best you make it wisely.
Marriage is the Building-Block of Modern Societies
Setting religion aside, marriage is the way that modern societies invite us to establish what is functionally the most basic building block on which the entire edifice rests. Though feminism has made some strides in this regard, most Western countries (not to mention repressive African, Eastern, and Middle Eastern ones) still regard a family unit as the foundation of the economy, medical system, tax system, and more. Even if marriage is not a sacrament, it is still very important.
How do you know when you are ready to tie the knot?
So, how then do you know when you are ready to turn a person who was a stranger not all that long ago, into your family?
You are ready to say “I do” when you can answer these four questions about yourself. Your answers do not need to be the same as your partners. To the contrary, in some areas, diversity is a better predictor of marriage satisfaction than similarity. Rather, you have to have grown up enough, to know yourself well enough to answer these four crucial questions, and you have to have the kind of solid open lines of communication with your partner that you will need to share the truth of who you are with them.
Four Questions, and A Commitment
Here are four questions plus one attitude to consider before you consider tying the knot:
1.What makes you happy?
The reason most members of free societies need a good long while to live before they are ready to get married is that they need some time to find the answer to this first, important question. With all of the freedom, choice, and distraction we have in our lives today, it can be hard to know what makes you happy. But, if you do not know, you are not ready to get married.
Newsflash: No other person can make you happy.
Getting married, in and of itself, will certainly not make you happy. Just ask married people.
The answers to the question “What makes me happy?” need not be complicated. When you uncover your answers, you find that they are quite simple. Answers vary widely from person to person, based on your background, temperament, level of education, and profession. Your answers need not be the same as your partner’s. Having different hobbies can be a wonderful strategy for cultivating healthy space from your partner.
Some couples play together. Others don’t. What matters is knowing those simple behaviors that bring you joy. Finding them can take some time. Doing so successfully requires self-knowledge. If you have not taken the time in your life to know yourself well enough to be able simply to articulate what brings you joy, take that time and only then consider marriage.
2. How do you want to spend your days?
We human beings can spend our days in all kinds of ways. Indoors, and outdoors. At work or at play. Raising children or investing ourselves. Ideas about “the right ways” to spend time are inherited from our families of origin and the communities where we grew up. As long as your survival needs are met and you are not harming anyone else, there is no right or wrong answer to how one should spend their time. However, not knowing the answer — not knowing yourself in this way — means that you are not ready to get married.
So much marital woe stems from differing views about the “right” way to spend time. What is the right balance of effort and leisure? Of productivity and waste? Of earning money or spending money? You and your partner are only ready to tie the knot when you can have clear, frank, non-judgemental conversations about how you want to spend your days.
This question is the way I recommend you address the decision to have children.
Childrearing is the single most demanding and expensive project we take on in modern societies. It takes at least twenty years and costs at least a million dollars. With Climate Calamity on the horizon, there is no right or wrong answer to the question “Should we have children?” Rather, your answer to the question will drastically impact just how you will spend your days during your childrearing years. Best you and your partner be on the same page about it.
3. What do you believe? What is your faith? What gives your life meaning?
I believe that people need meaning like they need air. When we are young we tend to think otherwise. However, as we age, we come to learn the lesson preached by Ecclesiastes, “There is nothing new under the sun.” Accomplishing the tasks of adulting are not enough to add richness to life. However, the ways we make and find meaning vary, and a shared language about them is essential to building a happy shared life.
Marrying within faith traditions that provided clearly defined roles and responsibilities used to be the shortcut we took to side-step this important question. If you and your partner are both members of the same traditional community, perhaps it still is for you.
That too was part of my story at twenty-three. My ex and I shared a deep commitment to the same faith tradition. However, as our marriage frayed, as we grew at different rates and failed one another in deeper ways, the stricture in those proscribed roles stopped being enough.
More reliable than submitting to an external doctrine is to know yourself well enough to know the answer to the question “What gives your life meaning?”
I find watching an excellent movie or gazing up at the stars to be the best date night activities to access this most important question. Fire up Ron Howard’s blockbuster “A Beautiful Mind” or the Wachowskis’ “The Matrix” if you are an action/adventure type and then listen deeply as your partner shares their answer to the question, “What do you believe? What gives your life meaning?”
4. What constitutes “enough” in your eyes?
Even more amorphous, but even more important than #3, is this fourth question, “What constitutes ‘enough’ in your eyes?” In consumer societies, we receive constant messaging that no amount of possessions should constitute enough. But, that belief is a recipe for a miserable life. I suggest you jettison it now.
Instead, before considering marriage, consider how you grew up, how your family defined luxury and excess, your desire to work or not work, and your love of stuff, and do your best to arrive at a clear answer to the question “What constitutes enough?” This question, more than any other, has no right or wrong answer. But, this topic, more than any other, brings misery to marriages when partners do not see eye to eye on the matter.
A clear understanding of what is “enough” is necessary to get to the real good stuff in life. Joy and ease, stress-free living, freedom, and love all await us on the other side of “enough.” When we have “enough” — enough space, money, toys, and degrees, we can get down to the joyful business of enjoying life and enjoying one another.
If you are considering marriage, enjoying one another is likely just what you are most hoping to do. Enjoying one another is the real, nitty-gritty translation of “living happily ever after.” To get there, we need to know our definition of enough.
Question Number Five is not a question. Rather, it is an attitude.
You are ready to get married when you are ready to paint your life like a masterpiece, your relationship its radiant center.
You are only ready to make a life-long commitment to another person when you are ready to offer your time, attention, talents and wealth as a gift to your partner, every single day.
Do not get married until you are ready to paint the masterpiece of your life making your relationship its radiant center.
It should be the light in the portrait, the breathtakingly beautiful inspiration that makes the whole thing worth painting, worth hanging on a wall to gaze at for hours.
If you do — if you commit to loving your partner day in and day out as the brushstrokes you will use to paint the masterpiece of your life — your life will be rich with meaning and love. You will be held and cared for. You will not be alone when you lie on your deathbed one day.
These, after all, are the reasons we get married.
But, unless you can answer these four crucial questions about yourself AND unless you are ready to serve your love like your very life depends on it, then you are not ready to say “I do.”
Marriage is Not Mandatory
In our modern world, it is very simply not necessary to get married to be happy or to have children. Think of gay folks who choose to co-parent without regard for romantic relationships. If what you are looking for most is companionship or stability, you are far more likely to find it within the context of friendship or the clearly negotiated language of “roommates.” Leave the life-long commitment out of it, and leave the government out of it.
Unlike “friendships” and “roommates,” marriage is a government-sanctioned institution whose historical roots are religious, designed (until we redesign it…) to be for life. Just ask any person who has gone through a conventional legal divorce and they will tell you that marriage is not something to mess around with. Forget RomCom niceties about “cold feet.” More than half of marriages end in divorce because we live in a self-centered age and most of us get married before we know ourselves.
Conclusion
If you are considering marriage, go home, grab a journal and write your answers to these four questions. Ask your partner to do the same. Keep journaling about them until your responses are crystal clear, such that you can sit down and compare them with those of your partner. Only then, when you can see that, “Yes! We both want to spend our time in similar ways and in a similar type of zip code. We both want to give 20+ years to raising more humans or don’t, and most importantly, we have a shared understanding of what feels like ‘enough’ and what makes life meaningful.”
Only then, are you ready to ask your heart:
Am I ready to love my partner, day in and day out, as if my own life depended on it? Am I ready to remember their goodness, even when they fail to live it sometimes? Am I ready to make a sacred offering of my time, effort, love, and attention on the altar of our relationship, so that the fires of love will warm our lives?
If the answer is yes, you are ready to get married. Mazel tov!
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Sarene’s forthcoming book Compassionate Divorce is a hands-on guide for couples who refuse to believe that the end of a marriage has to ruin your life. Pre-order your discounted copy today.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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Photo credit: Sandy Millar on Unsplash