All My Children

One of your most important goals when passing the baton to your child is to prepare him or her for marriage. If you have a strong and vibrant marriage, it is important to share with your children the principles upon which you have built and maintained this relationship. But if your marriage is less than ideal or you have experienced a divorce, lessons you have learned the hard way can still benefit your children, assuming that you are willing to be candid and transparent about your experience.

At a time when approximately 50 percent of marriages end in divorce and only 10 to 20 percent of the remaining marriages (5 to 10 percent of the total) are characterized by true satisfaction, parents face a formidable job educating their children about selecting a husband or a wife for life. Recent studies show that partners with similar interests have a better chance of achieving a fulfilling marriage. Because we are a mobile society, children from stable and loving homes often select partners with different backgrounds, customs, goals, interests, and beliefs. This does not mean that they cannot succeed in marriage, but in such cases both parties must enter the relationship with their eyes open and a willingness to work through their differences.

Early adolescence is a good time to begin discussing with your child characteristics and traits to seek in a future wife or husband. You may want to give him a list of twenty or thirty of these qualities and have him rank in order the ones he thinks are the most important. Quite often, children will discover that their mental image of their “dream partner“—very often a fantasy derived from movies and television shows—does not match with this ranking. It might be helpful to have your child save this list (or make a copy) and review it annually.

Also early in adolescence—perhaps on a special birthday such as the thirteenth— encourage your child to begin praying for a future spouse. As parents, you should be doing the same if you haven’t started already. Toward the end of high school, however, give your adolescent some books that explore the process of selecting a partner and building a strong marriage. The following ten principles of mate selection, along with seven deadly mate-selection errors:

Principle #1: Eliminate the seven deadly mate-selection errors.

1. Don’t get married too quickly. Longer courtships produce consistently healthier marriages.
2. Don’t get married too young. Wait to get married until you know yourself well, and until you know well the kind of person with whom you can be happy. This usually means that first marriages will not begin until the mid to late 20s.

• Don’t be too eager to get married, and don’t let anyone else who is overly eager push you into marriage. Make sure your mind is clear and settled.
• Don’t try to please someone else with your choice. You are the one who will profit or suffer from your choice for a lifetime.
• Don’t marry someone until you know him or her in a lot of different ways. You can make a far more accurate prediction about how much you will enjoy being married to a person if your experience is broad.
• Don’t get married with unrealistic expectations. Marriage isn’t a panacea; it requires an incredible amount of hard work. Don’t allow yourself to expect too much from your marriage.
• Don’t marry anyone who has a personality or behavioral problem that you’re not willing to live with forever. These problems don’t vanish; in fact, they often get worse. “Miracle cures” are far easier to come by before you are married. If the problem can be cured, make sure it is cured before you are married.

Principle #2: Develop a high degree of conscious clarity about the person you wish to marry, and filter this image through your conscious mind until you are completely comfortable with it.

Principle #3: Make sure the person you marry is very similar to you.

Principle #4: Get married only if both you and the person you want to marry are emotionally healthy.

Principle #5: Make sure you are passionately attracted to the person you want to marry, but wait until you are married to express the full intensity of your passion.

Principle #6: Decide to get married only after you have experienced a deeper, more stable kind of love. Passion may fade, but this kind of deeper love endures.

Principle #7: Develop mastery in the area of verbal intimacy. The love between two people who know how to be intimate with each other will grow dramatically.

Principle #8: Learn how to resolve differences before you get married. This will keep the road to love free and clear.

Principle #9: Get married only when you are ready to be absolutely committed to your partner—no matter what—for a lifetime.

Principle #10: If your parents, relatives, and close friends support your contemplated marriage, celebrate with them! If they don’t, listen carefully to them before you make your final decision.

Encourage your adolescent or young adult to obtain counseling before an official engagement is announced, even if he is certain that he has found the “love of his life.” Offer to pay for counseling if it is not furnished by the church. Many inventories are available to help counselors uncover any potential problem areas. The Prepare inventory, for example, identifies both strengths and weaknesses of each potential spouse and can predict which marriages are likely to succeed and which are at higher risk for divorce.

Inform your child that, even when married, he or she will need to work on this relationship for a lifetime. If you have grown children who are married, volunteer to pay for them to attend a marriage enrichment weekend (such as the Family Life Conference 1-800-FL-TODAY). You might even offer to baby-sit their children, if needed. (By the way, you might consider attending such a conference yourself.)

Finally, warn your child once more about becoming sexually involved before marriage. Among other things, premarital sex might lead him to marry the wrong person and rob him of a satisfying lifelong marriage. Children of divorce might be tempted to cohabit prior to marriage in hopes of avoiding their parents‘ mistakes. But statistics indicate that cohabitors have an even greater chance of divorce (approaching 75 percent).

The most important thing you can do for your children to help them develop a healthy concept of marriage is to allow them to see you loving, cherishing, and respecting your partner. If you are not married, allow your children to spend time with one or more families in which a nurturing, respectful marital relationship is modeled.

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