Then Comes Marriage

In my post last week, I introduced what I like to think of as the “staircase” of a romantic relationship. If you remember, the first step of the staircase is dating, where you go on a variety of dates with a variety of different people. In this stage, dating is very casual and there shouldn’t be a huge amount of commitment. When you find one person from the variety of people you dated that you would like to get a little more serious with, you should define the relationship and mutually make a decision to date exclusively. Exclusive dating is what defines courtship which is the second step in the staircase. During the courtship step you should spend time getting to know each other intimately and deepen the friendship you began in the dating step. If again you would like to deepen your romantic relationship with this person, you are headed toward the next step: engagement.

Just like before,

there is and should be a transition from courtship to engagement just like you had a DTR for the transition from dating to courtship. In this transition however, the commitment level is much higher. That’s because this transition includes the proposal. The proposal is an important part of the transition because it’s a formal declaration of commitment and love. It lets your partner know that you are ready for a life-time commitment.

The proposal transitions you into engagement. Most people believe that the engagement is the least important step before marriage, but I believe quite the opposite. There are two important things that should happen during the engagement step. The first is planning the wedding. Weddings are so exciting, but they can also cause a lot of stress between couples. I have a couple of words of advice to decrease some of the stress. One is for the woman not to make the wedding process a mother-daughter ordeal. Include your fiancé in the planning process. Don’t make him feel left out of his own wedding. My other suggestion is to reduce the amount of money spent on the wedding. Did you know that the average wedding in America costs around $30,000? That’s an insane amount of money to spend on a ceremony that takes less than a day. There are many ways that you can make a wedding special and beautiful without paying lots of money. You can even use some of that money for an extra special honeymoon. But it’s never a good idea to start off a marriage with financial problems right off the bat. Financial problems cause more stress in marriage relationships than people realize.

The next important thing that should happen during the engagement is planning the marriage. This is important, more important than planning the wedding I might add, because the marriage lasts longer than the wedding. Talk with your partner about what you want your marriage to be like. What kind of relationship do you want to have? Where will you live? Will the wife have a job, or will she be a stay-at-home mom? Do you want children? How many will you have, and when will you have them? What do you expect from your spouse in terms of marital roles? These are just a few questions to get you thinking and planning. But the important thing is that you plan it and plan it well.

The last and final step in the staircase of a romantic relationship is of course marriage. The wedding serves as the last transition between engagement and marriage. This is not only the personal but also the legal commitment to be partners for forever. After the wedding and hopefully the honeymoon, comes marriage. Marriage is wonderfully hard, or so I’m told and there are many adjustments that will take place especially during the first month of your marriage. Some of those adjustments include but are not limited to, budgeting, division of responsibilities (seriously who is going to wash the dishes?), sex, family boundaries, sleeping, and sharing space. These adjustments are why planning the marriage during the engagement period is so important. But despite these adjustments, marriage is great. Just keep in mind what I’ve said before: don’t lose sight of the importance of going on dates throughout the entire staircase, marriage included. Go on dates frequently with your spouse and work on deepening your friendship. After all, good and healthy marriages are rooted in deep and lasting friendships.