Getting married may be one of the most important things that a majority of people do. This is a serious life change that carries a lot of weight with it. With this in mind, you may have heard about the rising rates of divorce, along with endless stories of people in unhappy marriages. While it may not be possible to predict the future and avoid every negative scenario with planning, it’s important to make an effort by asking yourself a few essential questions before you take the plunge.
Outlined below are three things that you need to seriously consider to get the best chance at a happy marriage that will last.
1. What Is the Perfect Marriage To You?
To begin with, it’s a good idea for both you and your spouse to share what they feel the perfect marriage should look like. In this case, you ought to be on the same page concerning what each one of your dreams or fantasies about marriage are. This way, it should be clearer what your partner deems the most important details in marriage and vice versa.
This is something that you could either do during premarital counseling or in your own free time. According to Verywell Health, premarital counseling is typically around 45 to 60 minutes per session. This isn’t so much time that you can’t spare it to attend a few sessions. The value of these sessions is immeasurable in terms of preparing you and your spouse for marriage.
2. How Will You Deal With Stress?
Another important question that you need to answer before you get married is how you generally deal with stress. Too many people go through life unaware of how they can handle stressful situations. This is why it’s important to find out right from the start what your partner’s coping mechanisms are, as well as sharing your own with them. Life is bound to throw a lot at you, so you stand to benefit immensely by being prepared to deal with it all.
The best outcome is one in which you can work with each other to find the perfect solution, as this tends to be faster and more effective. For instance, you may have to handle immigration before you can be together legally. In this case, you should know that if the spouse of the holder of a green card is in America on a valid visa, they’re eligible to change their status as a result of the priority date being current. In such a case, there may be a lot of work to do, and plenty of paperwork to handle, so it’s good to understand how you can work together for the best outcome.
3. How Will You Handle Finances and Assets?
Talking about money may seem hard to do, but when you consider that it’s the reason for a majority of fights, you’ll understand why it’s crucial to have this talk. If you can overcome the main issues, such as whether you’re going to merge finances or not, you have a good chance of starting off on the right foot. This discussion shouldn’t stop at the surface level, but it should cover any important financial issues as well. There are so many different tools and resources available as well. You’d be surprised at just how much a tax bracket calculator or w-4 withholding calculator can help in new fiscal matters such as these. Additionally, when it comes to matters like homeownership, it’s important to know about the legal side of things as well as the financial side. For example, you may not know that if a deed reads something like “Owner 1 and Owner 2 JTROS,” this means that when one owner passes away, the other owner owns it fully.
If you can discuss the above questions in detail, you can gain valuable insight into each other’s most important thoughts. As a result, it will be easier to map a way forward for a happy and healthy lifestyle together.
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