For many people, the natural progression from dating someone and being in love is to get engaged and then get married. However, to have a successful marriage, you’ll need a bit more than just a superficial love for another person.
To help you know if you and your relationship are really ready to move forward with the person you love, here are three tips for preparing your relationship for a future marriage.
Work On The Skills You’ll Need For Success
Marriage is hard, regardless of how much you might love the person you’re choosing to marry. Because of this, you’ll need to have some certain skills that you can draw upon to make it easier for you and your spouse to maneuver your way through your future marriage.
According to Linda and Charlie Bloom, contributors to Psychology Today, some of the most important skills you can have for a successful marriage include both verbal and non-verbal communication, cooperation, negotiation, managing conflict, setting boundaries, gratitude, honesty with your emotions, the ability to express appreciation, and more. If you currently struggle with any of these things, you might want to take the time before you’re married to work on these skills so you don’t have such a steep learning curve once you are married.
Get On The Same Page With Money
One of the biggest things that married couples fight about is money. To keep this from happening in your marriage, it can be helpful to get on the same page with money before you get married.
To do this, Sylvia Smith, a contributor to Marriage.com, advises that you talk about things like your short-term and long-term financial goals, any debt that you’re currently carrying, if you find it hard to save or spend money, what your plans are for retirement, if you’ll share bank accounts or keep things separate, and more. Even if you and your partner don’t have the same ideas about certain financial principles, at least knowing this before you get married can make things easier.
Talk About Trust
Any good marriage has to be based on trust. But to different people, trust can mean different things. And once this trust is broken, different people will deal with betrayal in very different ways.
Before you get married, A. Pawlowski, a contributor to Today.com, recommends that you and your partner talk about what you would view as a breach of your trust when you get married. This can range from anything from cheating to lying to hiding money and more. Once you’ve laid this out, you should also talk about what these types of breaches in trust will mean for you and for your relationship.
If you and your partner are contemplating getting married, consider using the tips mentioned above to help prepare your relationship for this next step.
