Marriage is a beautiful journey that requires proper preparation to ensure a smooth and successful ride. Just like any other journey, it’s crucial to know where you’re headed and make sure your companion is on the same path.
Before embarking on this lifelong journey with your partner, there are important things to consider. By doing these things, you’ll be able to lay a strong foundation for your marriage. As the holy book says, “Can two walk together if they do not agree?”
In this blog post, I’ll be sharing 10 essential things to do before marriage that will help you and your partner align your goals, values, and expectations for a fulfilling and happy life together.
10 Important Things Every Couple Should Do Before Getting Married
This list of things to do before marriage will certainly help you avoid any heartaches in the future.
1. Make Sure Your Values Align
When embarking on a journey with a companion, it’s essential that both parties are headed in the same direction. It’s simply not practical to invest your time, resources, and attention in a journey that your partner doesn’t plan to end up at the same destination as you.
Before tying the knot, it’s crucial to ensure that your values align with your partner’s. It’s important to confirm that your partner shares your beliefs, dreams, and choice of where to settle down. Ignoring such fundamental factors could lead to spending a lot of money on the wedding and other things only to part ways.
Aligning values is a sure way to determine whether a partner is right or wrong for you. There are numerous ways to establish if your values align, such as discussing your ideologies with your partner and observing their actions because actions speak louder than words.
2. Have The Money Talk
You need to have the money talk as it is one of the things to do before getting married.
In a world where we have fast cars, trending clothes, designer shoes and bags, this is a discussion you need to have with your partner. There are so many belief systems when it comes to money and marriage, some people believe in spending today, another will come tomorrow, while some believe in saving for the rainy day.
There are so many belief systems and you must pick one that aligns with your belief system.
3. See Each Other’s Family
Your partner’s family is an extension of who they are. You must meet with your partner’s family because it denotes respect; and that you value them.
It helps you see the things that you want to see. Some things would never come up in a discussion between you and your partner but on meeting his family, it becomes something to discuss.
You might have certain questions about why they do certain things in their family or why they behave in a particular way, so meeting with your spouse’s family is one of the important things to do before marriage.
4. Spend Time Together
As you spend more time with your partner, you’ll notice that the veneer they may have initially presented will gradually fade away, revealing their true self. This is the beauty of spending time together – you get to know your partner on a deeper level and build a stronger connection.
So one of the things every couple should do before getting married is to spend a lot of time with your partner because if you don’t spend time with your partner, how do you want to understand them? How do you want to understand their ideologies? How do you want to learn to react to them when they do certain things? How do you want to know that your values are aligned?
Also, spending ample time with your partner before marriage can significantly ease the process of adapting to married life. When you invest quality time in each other, you gain a deeper understanding of your partner’s personality, likes, and dislikes. This helps you to treat them with more kindness, empathy, and respect, thereby strengthening your relationship and paving the way for a happy and fulfilling married life.
5. Talk About Kids
Some people want kids and some people do not want kids and it will be dangerous for you to assume that your partner would want what you want.
One of the things to consider before getting married is to make sure to know what your partner thinks about having children. It is very important to do this to avoid disappointment, betrayal, or divorce in the near future when you realize that your partner does not want what you want. This is a marriage deal breaker for many people, so discussing this is very important.
You also need to discuss with your partner how they plan to raise the kids. There are several ideologies when it comes to raising kids and you need to make sure that your partner’s thoughts align with yours.
The timing of having kids in the course of your marriage is very important too. These are very important questions you need to ask your partner because failure to ask would be you shooting yourself in the leg.
6. See A Marriage Counselor
It may look like you don’t need this because of how well you know each other and how emotionally intelligent you both are. This is not a function of emotional intelligence; rather, it’s a function of all the hidden signs that you might never see because you are not trained to see them.
One of the most important things to do with your partner before marriage is to see a marriage counselor. The importance of a marriage counselor can never be over-emphasized because a marriage counselor would help reveal underlying ideologies that might destroy your marriage and correct certain ideologies just to ensure that you have a beautiful marriage.
So when you see a marriage counselor, what are your expectations? You are going to expect that the marriage counselor would pinpoint certain ideologies that might hurt your marriage in the long run, help you identify certain family patterns like hurtful words that you must not allow in your marriage, and help you both reveal certain traumas or pains that your partner might not know.
A marriage counselor helps you both get into marriage with a healthier picture of what to expect in marriage and a much healthier version of yourself as a partner.
7. Go On A Trip
Going on a trip is an exciting and worthwhile experience to have before tying the knot. It provides an opportunity for you and your partner to strengthen your bond and create lasting memories.
A trip can also serve as a much-needed break from the stress of wedding planning. If you’ve been eager to check off some of the items on your personal couple’s bucket list, a trip is the perfect way to do so. Additionally, going on a trip with your partner can alleviate the pressure from family members and in-laws during the wedding planning process.
By taking a trip together, you can enter into marriage with a clear and balanced state of mind. This is one of the fun things to do before marriage.
8. Learn Conflict Resolution
This is one of the things that you would learn when you see a marriage therapist; conflict resolution.
You and your partner are from different backgrounds, you both are not the same people, you might have contrasting personalities and might have different ideologies, yet you both are still in love, which is a beautiful thing. This does not excuse the fact that you both are going to have some sort of friction and some sort of clashes, so what do you do when you find yourself in this situation?
You need to learn conflict resolution. The problem is not getting into conflict, the problem is knowing how to deal with the conflict in a way that will not push you both apart but rather will bring you both closer together, more in love and more understanding of the other person. This is one of the important things to do before marriage.
9. Define Your Religious Beliefs
Does your partner believe in the existence of a God or not? This is a discussion you need to have with your partner, it is one of the most important things to do before marriage because it will determine the trajectory of your family’s spiritual life and to an extent, how you both will raise your kids.
Please don’t assume they believe what you believe in to avoid betrayal and disappointment.
10. Keep An Open Mind
One of the things to do before marriage is to keep an open mind.
As much as you want your values to align, your partner is different from you so there will always be some areas where you do not see eye to eye so you both need to learn how to meet each other halfway.
It’s good to keep an open mind about certain things as long as it does not pose a danger to your love life or your marriage in the long run. This is something that you have to learn because marriage is all about compromises and if you ask the best of couples, they will tell you that at some point in their lives, they had to make compromises.
5 Things You Must Discuss Before Marriage
These things to discuss are the important things couples need to do before marriage.
1. Family Ideologies
Family ideologies is one of the things to discuss before marriage because this will determine a lot of things that could impact your relationship and future family and you do not want to feel like you have been deceived.
So you must get this right because it will certainly affect you and the kids you may have in the future.
2. The Pattern Of Raising Kids
Some people believe in corporal punishment while some do not believe in it. There are other beliefs that people hold regarding raising children and it only makes sense you both agree on the same things for effective parenthood because this is one of the conversations you must have before marriage.
3. Finances
You need to ask questions on finances as it is one of the most important questions to ask before marriage. This is because finance is a huge part of your marriage. It determines your standard of living, and the quality of life you both will lead, so it’s a very important discussion to have.
4. Dealing With In-Laws
Dealing with in-laws is one of the questions to ask your partner before marriage because some in-laws can be nosy, bossy, or straight-down annoying. What you want to avoid is clashing with them, so you need to make sure that your partner has the same ideas as to how to deal with in-laws.
Also, this is something that seeing a therapist will help you have a better idea of.
5. The Concept Of Compromise
The concept of compromise is a concept that might look new to you but it’s never new to the best of couples because compromise is a huge part of marriage.
Both of you are not the same people so you both have to meet each other halfway in certain areas of your life. You both have to be there for each other in one way or the other even if it’s not convenient because love is sacrifice.
So you need to make sure your proposed better half is willing to make sacrifices where necessary as this is one of the important questions to ask before marriage.
Final Thoughts On Things You Need To Do Before Marriage
A successful marriage is a soup with so many ingredients, and one of those ingredients is making sure you and your partner are headed to the same destination. It will make the journey faster and much more enjoyable because you both know what you want and what you are going for.
These things to do before marriage will help you ensure that you start your marriage on the right note and keep going successfully till d##th do you part.
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