Loving the one you’re with is about realizing that you are lucky and blessed in so many ways and it extends beyond our partners to our families as well. It is about deciding that instead of coexisting with our spouses, parents, and kids we begin to really live with and for them; breaking out of routines and spending each day as though it could quite possibly be our last. It is also about creating love inside of ourselves and giving it to the people around us without holding back or counting what it is we get or don’t get in return. Loving the one you’re with is very much about living in the moment and realizing “that there is already a rose in the fisted glove!” That is, what we have in our hands and in our lives right now are worth living for and worth expressing in the kind of way that makes us feel satisfied and willing to take the leap.

It may take 2 months or two years but, in my humble opinion, before you leap for love and marriage you should be relationally mature.

Are you willing to appoint your partner the guardian of your solitude?

Are you willing to allow your partner to hold the master key that opens the gates of happiness?

Do you feel the irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired?

A great marriage is not when the ‘perfect couple’ comes together. It is when an imperfect couple learns to enjoy their differences.
Can you enjoy your differences with your partner?

Are you willing to be an encourager rather than a critic, a forgiver rather than a collector of hurts, an enabler rather than a reformer?

Are you willing to spend the time to nurture, feed and constantly renew your love with ingenuity and consideration?

Are you willing to respectfully and consistently communicate with your partner and agree to disagree when necessary?

If your answer was yes to all of the above, then, take the leap and forever love and be happy. But do remember that marriage is not 50/50 but BOTH parties giving 100%.

Louis K. Anspacher:
Marriage is that relation between man and woman in which the independence is equal, the dependence mutual, and the obligation reciprocal.