Are you planning a Wedding or Preparing for a Life Together?

Your wedding is the first “Big” event in your life together as husband and wife. It is the beginning of a sacred covenant, a promise to each other of your love and intention for the future. You want your wedding day to be perfect, to be the way you plan it to be.

There is a reason that most Clergy insist on some amount of pre-marital counseling. You can become so caught up in planning your wedding day that you can easily neglect to plan for the rest of your life together. Along the journey to becoming Husband and Wife, here are some things you should address or at least begin to give some serious thought to.

Differences in Backgrounds:

Have you discussed any difference in ethnic, cultural, economic, or religious backgrounds? Will you respect one another’s backgrounds? Can you learn to celebrate and appreciate differences in backgrounds by participating in each other’s traditions?

Religious Beliefs:

If you are both persons of faith, have you discussed what place your religious beliefs will take in your marriage? If you are of different faiths, will you be able to compromise about any differences? If you have children, how will you teach them about matters of religious beliefs?

Holidays and Special Occasions:

Eventually the question will arise, “whose family will we celebrate what holidays with”? You might want to think about alternating from one year to the next.

Finances:

Will both of you work and share in providing the family income? Will you keep the money you each earn separate or will it be “our money”? Will you have a savings plan? Will you use an organized budget?

Children:

This is a very important issue. Are you planning to have children, and how many? How will you work out parenting them together? Will you share in the day to day care of the baby, changing diapers, feeding, getting up in the middle of the night?

Household Chores:

Who will do what around the house? This is especially important if both of you will be working outside of the home. Try being creative and do some of the chores together.

Differences of Opinions – Compromise and Resolution:

Occasionally there will be differences of opinion. How will you handle those times when you do not agree? Will you demand you own way, or will you listen to each other and respectfully come to a compromise or resolution? It is not helpful to go to bed angry or sleep in separate beds. Keep working on a compromise until you find a way.

Change in Other Relationships:

When you get married, you make a commitment to each other. You enter into a covenant saying that your spouse is your highest priority to which you have pledged your love and total commitment. All other relationships need to change and take their appropriate place secondary to your marital commitment.

Sex:

Sexual intimacy is a natural and beautiful part of marriage; it should be mutually enjoyable and fulfilling. You will find that life has a way of getting in the way of your ”sex life.” It is not always possible to be spontaneous; sometimes you may find it necessary to plan together for periodic “date nights.”

Marital Expectations:

Our imaginations can very easily take over our perception of reality. As much as, during your courtship, you may see the world in your future wife or husband, the reality is that when you live together you will see all their flaws and weaknesses. Morning hair, five o’clock shadow, bad breath, strange body sounds, and stinky feet, will be an occasional reality. Cut your spouse some slack, they are just as human as you are. Marriage is a life journey, an adventure through which you will discover the blessing and gift your spouse is to you.