Ten Easy Steps To Save Your Marriage

Marriage is the most important step in a person's life next to deciding to have children after marrriage. Most couples are seeking counseling before they make that all important step. Other couples are avoiding marriage altogether because of the catastrophic divorce rate. These couples are rationalizing that it is better to live and partner together instead of setting themselves up to fail. for the ones who is going to make the huge step into marriage, the following considerations are offered.

There are ten important considerations to ponder before making the step into marriage, which is not only a legal binding relationship but is emotional binding as well. After the most publicized divorce proceedings of the Mel Gibson case where he is dissolving a marriage of twenty eight years; longevitity has nothing to do with a marriage lasting forever.

Consider counseling, conferencing with your clergy and talking the marriage event with its implications over with your bride or groom to be before getting married.

Number One: Leave no stone unturned in deciding that you both truly love each other and is willing to make the sacrifices needed to keep the marriage strong and enduring. Make sure that the attraction is not merely sexual as the lust will soon wear away with the atrocities of everyday life. Couples who have lived together and then marry, are finding themselves divorced soon after. Do not play house without the legality of marriage as this step must not only be secured by your love for each other but by the laws of your state.

Number Two: Talk about finances between the two of you and figure out how you are going to support the family. A system of budgeting and taking care of the bills should be in place before children begin to arrive into your new family. If you both are in college then you may want to delay marriage until your finances are in order. Finance and managing the family budget are major factors in the dissolution of marriages. Arguements about finances are the quickest tickets to a divorce. So you and your soon to be bethrothed have to be clear about family financial planning and mangement of household bills.

Number Three: Meet with the families and get to know where your partner gets all of the personality traits that brought you to the point of considering marriage. You may have met with the family before thinking about marriage. But as the marriage event gets closer to becoming a reality, you are going to want to hear other opinions about your soon to be husband or wife. Why should you even listen to others when the two of you are in love and ready to get married? You want to make sure that all bases have been covered and sometimes family members and friends can see flaws in your soon to be wedded that you are too in love to see.

Address concerns as family members and friends can be opinionated. If you find your self clueless about what they are saying about your soon to be husband or soon to be wife, you should do the research and find out what your rebuttals are. Do not make excuses. Do not be defensive. Honestly confront the comments or remarks and see if you can deal with these flaws for a lifetime.

Number Four: If the two of you are not of the same faith, normally the wife is the one who concedes and bring the children up in the religion of the husband. If you are strong in your faith, make sure that your partner understand that you are okay with bringing up the children in a two religion family. The situation of two separate religions in one family is workable. Religion is a major consideration that must be considered before marriage.

Number Five: Decide if both of you are going to continue to work or whether he wants you to stay home and take care of the children. This is a good time to discuss how many children would the two of you like to have as the two income family is based upon how far the budget has to be stretched. If one of you decide not to have children at all and the other one wants children, there can be problems in the future.

Number Six: This distraction is taken from the finance consideration. Where will the two of you stay and will you rent or buy a house. Research each other credit scores and decide to make attending to your credit a top priority. If the relationship is bicoastal, then the two of you must decide which state the two of you plan to live. This kind of planning takes the romance out of the relationship but when you speak of marriage, then it is time to think of all practical issues.

Number Seven: This number should be promoted up to number one or two of considerations to pronder before marriage. Are you going to have a church wedding, a justice of the peace wedding or are you going to scoot off to Las Vegas. Who is going to pay for the wedding and is the setting going to be traditional or are the two of you getting married on the beach, hollywood style.

Number Eight: Are the finances in such a state to require a prenuptial agreement. What do the two of you think about a renuptial agreement. Do you think that the prenuptial agreement is a negative connotation about marriage and takes away from the trust between the two of you. With today's economy, maybe a prenuptial agreement is not necessary; only the two involved in the relationship can make that determination.

Number Nine: Look at the long term implications of living and raising a family together. Are all of the bank accounts going to be jointly held or can both access the funds. If the soon to be wife is working now, is she going to be required to work once babies began to arrive? Is there an agreed upon plan on how to handle long term family planning with banking and employment considerations.

Number Ten: Will any family member be allowed to move in if they fall on hard times. A change in living conditions could ruin a relationship with the bickering of having a third person in the household.

Write all of these steps down and both of you should discuss the answers to all of these questions. Understanding and trust are as important in a relationship as love. They say that love conquers all but you do not want to have Bride's War and for that matter Groom's war soon after the marriage.