People who marry make a decision. Just like any other endeavor in this life, when you want to do something, you have to make a decision to do it. Marriage is a goal. People that end up married, whether consciously or unconsciously, choose marriage as the desired goal for themselves, and this largely happens, in my experience, before they meet their marriage partner.
Yes, there are those who seem to have ‘stumbled’ into marriage. We lazy people envy them, don’t we? It seems as if they didn’t have to lift a finger. Usually these people were married very young, perhaps before that had time to put much thought into it. Or didn’t they? You might try asking them whether getting to the altar was quite as much of a ‘no-brainer’ as you assume. You may be surprised.
Yes, occasionally people do marry their highschool or college sweetheart, for better or worse. Perhaps they were ‘young and dumb,’ as they say. We often hear of ‘shotgun weddings’ (my dad had one) or other ill-considered unions that lack the full consciousness of those involved. Those are not good circumstances for marriage, although some of them do manage to grow-up and work things out eventually. Yet there are many successful marriages that started out early in life, as well. What can we learn from them? Regardless of whether it felt easy or hard for them, these unions were obviously made possible by a great leap of faith—and a courageous decision—by the people involved.
I learned an important lesson from one of these. Let me tell you what happened: I was dating a guy in highschool (a very nice, handsome, exciting guy) who obviously wanted to start a family of his own soon. After almost a year of dating, I broke it off with him—his timeline didn’t fit with mine. And to be honest, I doubt I ever would have wanted to marry him, no matter how much time we gave it. I had other plans at the time, and he just wasn’t the guy for me.
As soon as we broke—within weeks—he was dating another girl we had both recently met at a party. Within another year or two, they were married! To my knowledge they have several children and are doing well. This was my first lived experience of the principle that when someone truly wants to be married, they make a decision. Yes, I was the one who broke things off. But he certainly didn’t waste time after our breakup pining for me, knowing that our relationship, though passionate, was a ‘no-go’ for his goal of marriage.
This guy did it right. It wasn’t easy. We were reluctant to break up, we both cared about each other and had been through a lot together. He was really devastated when I ended it with him. Yet, he had his eye on marriage, and I didn’t. So he quickly moved on and accomplished his marriage goal, and by all accounts, has reaped the rewards of happy, fruitful family life. He’s also reaped the particular rewards having a life-partner to work through the milestones of life together from a young age.
Looking back, I certainly don’t regret breaking up with him. I loved him enough to be honest with him and set him free. Yet, I always remembered the reality that if a guy truly wants to get married, and he’s not too conflicted about that, he’ll go and find his girl. His readiness to marry had nothing to do with his financial security, accomplishments or many other things that people assume are prerequisites for marriage. He was only 19 or 20, and he had a lot to learn. Yet spiritually, he was ready. He wanted marriage and family, and was prepared to make the necessary sacrifices. So he did that.
Back then, my ego was rather hurt by the fact that he moved on so quickly. After all, just weeks before, he had been so passionate about being with me! Yet now, it makes perfect sense. He had enough wisdom to put his enlightened self-interest first. He owed me nothing. His personal goal of marriage was more important to him than any particular romance. He wasn’t going to let some screwball (me) deprive him of his cherished goal, or delay him from leaping on the next opportunity to bring it to fruition.
So what I’m trying to illustrate is this: Having made a decision, you must honor it. You must not be hung-up on a person who can’t or won’t walk that path with you. This is so simple it’s almost comical. Yet it bears repeating, because so many frustrated, confused people I meet are sabotaging their own happiness by refusing to accept this basic principle:
you can only marry someone who wants to be married to you.
This requires you to make a decision to pursue marriage before your interest in a particular person. You must decide to pursue marriage regardless of anyone else; whether you have any good prospects around you; whether you like anyone right now—regardless of any other ‘buts’ or ‘what ifs’ or objections. Make a decision that you are going to honestly pursue marriage, and take the next indicated action.
Grow Up and Marry! 