Getting engaged is one of the most exciting times in ones life, but before you decide to spend the rest of your life with someone, make sure you’re truly ready to commit.
Before you say “yes,” here’s what you should know about yourself, your guy, and your relationship.
1. Get Financially Sound
One of the worst things you could do to your future spouse is bringing a heavy load of debt into the marriage. Worse than this would be bringing bad financial habits into your marriage. There are tons of resources available with great information to help you grasp the importance of being financially sound. Don’t bring unnecessary burdens into your marriage.
Aside from salary, you should know how much will be put in savings, how much debt and most importantly, source of money. You don’t want any surprises after marriage.
Ask these questions before you get married so you know what caused any problems and how to avoid them in the future. Sure, the conversation requires skill, but you can ease into it by discussing your hopes and dreams together. That opens the door to discussing your financial history.
2. Whether you both want children
Some couples want six kids — others can’t even imagine having one. What ultimately matters though, is that you both know in your gut how you feel about the “having kids” question.
Sit down with your fiancé and have a true heart-to-heart: Discuss where you see yourself in 5 or 10 years and if kids are part of that vision. If you’re not on the same page, one of you will have to compromise in a big way, which may be very stressful (or even a dealbreaker).
3. How to protect your personal assets
When you get married, you’ll have to decide how you’re going to handle financial expenses. “Yours, mine and ours” approach will be preferable. Set up a joint checking/savings account for paying general household bills and saving for big purchases or vacations. But protect any assets you bring into the marriage — your trust fund, a condo, large monetary gifts from your parents — by keeping them in your name.
4. Whether you want to keep or change your name
Not every woman is keen on giving up a name that reflects her personal and professional identity, heritage and family history. And these days, there are lots of ways to play the name game: Keep the one you’ve got. Take a hyphenated name. Combine your names into one new one. There’s no “right” answer, you just need to know what feels right to you — and talk to your guy about what’s important to him.
5.That it’s okay to fight — And how to fight fairly
No couple agrees about everything all the time, so don’t fret that your relationship is heading south when you and your guy clash. In fact, it’s a bigger red flag if you don’t ever fight. “If you’re not having disagreements, that means one person is over-compromising or not speaking up,”. But while fighting is a sign of a healthy relationship, you need to fight fairly.
Research shows that couples who are overly critical or defensive are more likely to end up divorcing five years after their wedding. Instead, start sentences with “I think” and “I feel” so you’re not blaming your man for everything, but expressing how his/her actions have affected you and be willing to compromise.
6.Where you want to be in 5, 10, 15 years
While you don’t need to have your whole life planned out, it’s important to know what matters most to you — whether it’s wanting to make partner at your law firm, running a marathon or hoping to have two kids, two years apart. Having a roadmap can help ensure that you don’t get so wrapped up in your husband’s goals and dreams that you forget your own.
“When we don’t focus on ourselves, we become unhappy and then the marriage becomes unhappy,” says Dr. Lombardo.
7. Realize People Change
This one is tough to understand until you have been there and it especially applies if you are saying “I Do” at a young age. People change because of life’s circumstances, events, and other influences. Just know, your spouse, even yourself, will change over time. The key to success in your marriage is knowing ahead of time you will need to be able to adapt to a changing spouse, and a changing you, over the years.
8.Get Your Priorities in Line
If you are accustomed to hanging out with the guys six nights a week or hanging out with the girls in clubs on the weekend, it is time to change your priorities. If you think you can put yourself in these positions after saying “I Do”, you are setting yourself up for a failed relationship. Understand this; I am not saying you can no longer have fun, but you must respect your spouse when you take your vows. You should communicate your priorities well before setting a date for the big day.
9. Communicate with Your (Future) Spouse
This is the life blood of your relationship. Be intentional and deliberate when communicating with your spouse. This could be as simple as calling your spouse to let him/her know you are going to be late for work, always give an estimated time of arrival.
10. Respect Your Spouse
This should be in all bold, italicized, and all caps. Maybe you should consider having it tattooed across both arms and your chest. Respect in a relationship determines how severe, and how often, conflict will be in your relationship. Learn to respect yourself. When you can respect yourself, you can adequately respect your future spouse. Respect is simply this: Considering the feelings and needs of another over your own.
11. Never, Ever, Quit
Don’t go into your marriage thinking ahead of time, “If he/she does this, I am out”. You must be open to forgiveness from the start. Regardless. No, I am not suggesting you tolerate any type of physical, mental, or verbal abuse, but, beyond these issues, learn to forgive. After marrying my wife at the age of eighteen, I packed my stuff and threatened to leave multiple times the first year. Show commitment to your future spouse. Don’t threaten to leave. Don’t mention leaving. Be committed. Never quit.
12. Make Sure You Can’t Live Without Him/Her
Listen, if you date casually now and if you can go days without talking to him/her, you should reconsider your plans to marry. Marriage is a covenant between two people who are best friends, first. Best friends talk. They have conflicts, but they are fair about dealing with conflict. Think about this: If your spouse disappeared from your life today, how would you respond?
Reality is none of us are promised tomorrow. I know, stop with the depressing talk. This is reality, and once all the parties and celebrations are over, reality hits you between the eyes like a baseball thrown at 95 MPH. If you two aren’t even friends now, maybe you should consider your decision: marriage is a commitment for life.
13. Be Prepared to Give 100%
You have heard the cute little saying, “marriage is 50/50”, right? Well, that’s crap. It is not 50/50, in fact, it is more like, you give all you have and your spouse gives all they have, plus some. Marriage will chew you up and spit you out if you go into it thinking you can get by with giving half an effort. It does not work that way.
14. Never Stop Dating
Do you remember the very first time you and your spouse, or future spouse, went on a date? Do you recall how your heart was beating out of your chest at some point during this date? Often times after the vows are exchanged, us men especially, tend to sit back on cruise control. Don’t do this! Celebrate her! Celebrate him!
Pursue your lover like he/she is still considering spending their life with you. When you love, respect, and pursue your spouse, you will reap unending rewards. Yes, guys, sometimes this means sex. To men, be men. Your wife wants someone to lead the way. Lead her by loving her, respecting her, and never, ever, stop pursuing her.
Aside the listed above, here are some medical tests intending couples needs to do before going to the altar:
The first test will be genotype to avoid giving birth to offspring’s of sickle cell. The type of genotype we have includes; AA, AS, AC, SS, SC and CC. All these are different variants of AA, AS and AC. In recent times we have also seen another phenomenon called the Thalassemia Phenomenal. It’s actually not common, its majorly between Mediterranean, Asia and Caribbeans. It not very common in Africa but now we are seeing more of those things in Africa now. This is now in Africa due to mix marriage and the traits are now being passed down to the offspring. That is why we now have AA and AS having SS. It is not SS, it is thalassemia phenomenal but it has the same features with SS and the machine we have in this part of the world don’t recognize it, they present it as SS and SC. So thalassemia phenomenal should be considered too. The test that reveals this is High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC).
The blood group is also important because there is something called Rhesus factor (Rh factor). It is the positive (+) or negative (-) at the end the blood group. Positive is Rhesus factor Positive and Negative is Rhesus factor negative. If Rh positive lady gets married to Rh positive man there is no problem, but if Rh negative lady marries Rh positive man, then there is a problem. Although the problem is minimal and can be solved. In this situation, if the lady gets pregnant and the first child is positive, it will sensitize the mother’s cell and makes them aggressive, noting happens to the first pregnancy but subsequent ones become a problem, the mother can lose other pregnancies and se may give birth to still births and blue babies tat dies on the spot and it can continue to happen over and over again. It’s not village people, its lack of knowledge. This was common in the days of our forefathers whereby miscarriages and stillbirths were rampant. This tragedy can be avoided with a shot of an injection called Rhogam which will be administered to the mother.
Another test to look out for is Venereal Disease Research Laboratory (VDRL). This test for syphilis and other venereal diseases. The woman’s blood levels should also be checked because labor process can come with bleeding. So, it is better to know the blood level and boost it before it gets to that stage.