Answer (Dr. Gary Chapman):
I wish I had a simple answer to the question “How do I know I’ve met the right person to marry?” That’s not an easy question. I could give a flippant answer and say, “They will fall at your feet and say you are wonderful, and you are absolutely, incredibly beautiful,” but that’s superficial. When you are in love you almost always think this is the person that I should marry. And I think that is one of the big flaws of our culture is that we’ve lead people to believe that if you’ve had these euphoric feelings accompanied by all of these thoughts about how perfect they are and how wonderful they are that, that is the foundation to make the decision to marry. But I think it’s possible to fall in love with many people and they not be a good marriage partner for you. The bigger question is what do you hold in common? It’s not the euphoric feelings. It’s are you close enough intellectually, emotionally, socially, and spiritually to hold hands—I mean to build a life long relationship? You see, most of the problems that come up in marriage are in these areas.
I remember the young lady who told me about six months after she got married, “I have a hard time with him because every Sunday he wants to go see the races and I can’t see what he gets out of watching cars go around in an oval, you know?” Well she could have known that before they got married, that he was devoted to racing but she ignored it because they were “in love.”
Socially, do you like to do similar things? Now I know that when we are in love, we often do things because the other person likes to do them. But the question is, gut level, if you didn’t have these feelings would you enjoy doing this? Well, there should be some things you would enjoy doing together. So, socially you examine those things.
Intellectually, are you on the same wave length? Can you carry on a conversation about intellectual matters and understand each other? Do you have the freedom to share your ideas and not feel condemned by the other person if they disagree with you?
Emotionally, does the other person handle their emotions well? How about anger—have you seen them angry? What do they do when they get angry? Do they handle their anger well? How about disappointment—do they spend a lot of time depressed? Now I’m talking about negative emotions but there are also positive emotions. What do they do when they’re really excited about something? How do they handle their emotions?
What are their values? What do they see as important in life? If you have different values, you’re going to have conflicts. So, to me, the decision to marry has to be based on far more than the fact that we simply have these euphoric feelings for each other. We need to examine the foundation for building a life long marriage.
